The Ben Shapiro Show - SHAKE-UP At The White House

00:00:00.000 Alrighty, folks, a lot to get to on today's show.

00:00:02.000 But if you want even more from the Ben Shapiro show on The Daily Wire, it's time to become a Daily Wire Plus member.

00:00:07.000 Get member-exclusive shows, ad-free streaming, and early access to our new releases.

00:00:11.000 Watch premium films and documentaries you're not going to find anywhere else.

00:00:14.000 Connect with a community that shares your values, not one that cancels you for those values.

00:00:18.000 Watch anywhere, anytime on desktop, mobile, and TV apps.

00:00:20.000 Join the fight right now at dailywire.com slash subscribe also.

00:00:24.000 Do you hear drums in the distance?

00:00:25.000 You can own a piece of Daily Wire history.

00:00:28.000 A beautiful mini Focahontas statue at dailywire.com slash shop.

00:00:32.000 Yes, it's been years in the making.

00:00:34.000 I'm surprised it took us this long.

00:00:35.000 This six and a half inch finely crafted resin statuette is a scale replica of the legendary monument that towers over the Daily Wire site.

00:00:42.000 Word has it.

00:00:42.000 She has one 1024th authentic.

00:00:45.000 100% hilarious.

00:00:46.000 Perfect for your desk, bookshelf, or mantle of your teepee, longhouse, or other traditional dwelling.

00:00:51.000 Limited quantities available at dailywire.com slash shop.

00:00:54.000 And yeah, we're making fun of Elizabeth Moore and they're not Native Americans. 0.83

00:00:56.000 Alrighty, so let's talk about what just happened in Washington, D.C. yesterday.

00:01:01.000 So President Trump, in a shock move, decided to fire Mike Waltz, is what it looked like originally.

00:01:07.000 And a bunch of people were celebrating this.

00:01:08.000 Mike Waltz is the National Security Advisor or...

00:01:12.000 Obviously, Mike Waltz had been under severe fire since this signal chat screw-up in which he accidentally included the Atlantic journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, who President Trump then gave an interview to.

00:01:23.000 Again, not sure why that happened.

00:01:24.000 In any case, it was a screw-up.

00:01:26.000 There's no question it was a screw-up.

00:01:28.000 The question was how long Waltz would last over at NSA.

00:01:31.000 Well, yesterday it was announced that Waltz would no longer be at NSA, and cheers went up from the anti-Waltz kind of...

00:01:40.000 And then it was announced that Marco Rubio would become the temporary NSA and Walt himself would be moved over to the role of UN ambassador, a role that originally Elise Stefanik, the congresswoman from New York, had been nominated for.

00:01:54.000 But when it became clear that the Republican majority in Congress was under threat, she was sort of removed from that nomination.

00:02:00.000 So Walt is moving from NSA over to the UN ambassador role.

00:02:05.000 Rubio is now serving in four positions simultaneously.

00:02:07.000 He's the secretary of state, the national security advisor temporarily, the acting head of USAID, which of course is basically getting zeroed out, and the official archivist of the United States government.

00:02:18.000 So he's like that kid in your third grade class who is simultaneously the secretary of the student government, as well as the vice president and the treasurer.

00:02:26.000 That basically appears to be what's happening with Rubio.

00:02:29.000 Now, there's still a lot of questions about what happened here.

00:02:32.000 Because people are interpreting this as a proxy fight inside the Trump administration over the direction of foreign policy more generally.

00:02:38.000 And that's absolutely credible.

00:02:40.000 It is certainly plausible that there is, in fact, an ongoing conversation slash fight inside the administration over the direction of foreign policy.

00:02:47.000 We know that because we know those conversations are happening largely from that signal chat that was originally leaked accidentally to the Atlantic, in which you had basically on one side, in favor of bombing the Houthis, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.

00:03:01.000 Mike Waltz, the National Security Advisor.

00:03:03.000 It appeared Rubio was on that side.

00:03:05.000 And then on the other side, you had Vice President J.D. Vance.

00:03:09.000 Now, obviously, the Vice President and many people associated with his team, including, presumably, Special Envoy Steve Whitcoff, who we'll get to in a moment, they have a very different view on American foreign policy.

00:03:18.000 They're very much in favor of a sort of isolationist-laden foreign policy, not a Reagan-esque peace through strength.

00:03:25.000 And this is an ongoing conversation inside the administration.

00:03:28.000 This is no great secret by any stretch.

00:03:32.000 This move inside could betray more of that fight, but again, unclear which side of that fight Marco Rubio is on.

00:03:38.000 Traditionally, a lot of people in the administration had perceived Rubio to be on the more traditional Republican peace through strength side of that fight.

00:03:45.000 And now, presumably, because J.D. Vance is supporting Marco Rubio for taking over NSA, maybe that means that Rubio has sort of moved over to the Vance side of the argument.

00:03:56.000 Again, a lot of this is sort of trying to read tea leaves as to the direction of the administration.

00:04:00.000 And in the end, the only policymaker who really matters is, of course, the president of the United States.

00:04:05.000 President Trump wrote on Truth Social, from his time in uniform on the battlefield in Congress, and as my national security advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation's interests first.

00:04:13.000 I know he will do the same in his new role.

00:04:15.000 Now, there are a lot of reports out of places like Axios that essentially the White House was already turning on Waltz from very early on in the administration, that he didn't get along supposedly with the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, that his foreign policy...

00:04:29.000 The things that he actually believed were at odds with people like Vance or like Steve Whitcoff.

00:04:35.000 That is what Axios is reporting.

00:04:38.000 Apparently, on a trip to Greenland in March, Vice President Vance counseled Waltz about, quote, working more collaboratively.

00:04:43.000 And people inside the White House said that he didn't work well with Susie Wiles.

00:04:47.000 And then apparently, Laura Loomer came in and, of course, started urging President Trump to fire some of the staffers that Waltz had appointed. 0.95

00:04:54.000 Those would be the, quote-unquote, neocons.

00:04:56.000 Now, again, the term neocon has basically become A term of universal opprobrium applied to people who clearly are not neocons.

00:05:03.000 A neocon, just technically speaking, these are people who were Democrats in the 1960s, and they called themselves liberals mugged by reality.

00:05:10.000 They moved over to the right.

00:05:12.000 Many of them during the Bush administration were very interventionist, not just with regard to Iraq, but also with regard to, say, Libya and Syria, which is a sort of better acid test as to whether somebody was a truly interventionist neocon.

00:05:24.000 Again, Iraq was widely approved by large swaths of the Republican Party, including some people who now count themselves isolationists.

00:05:30.000 It was really the post-Iraq conflicts, like Libya and Syria, where these divisions started to really emerge between people who are very interventionist and almost Wilsonian style and people who are not.

00:05:41.000 So a good example of this would be Ted Cruz.

00:05:43.000 Ted Cruz was against the intervention in Libya and against an intervention in Syria as well.

00:05:47.000 By the way, so was I. In any case, the attempt to label everybody a neocon...

00:05:52.000 Is basically now just an all-purpose insult that you throw at anybody who doesn't agree with a more Pat Buchananite vision of American foreign policy.

00:06:01.000 So, in any case, a bunch of people who are under Waltz were targeted by Laura Loomer, and some of them got fired.

00:06:06.000 That was a couple of weeks ago.

00:06:08.000 In recent days, according to Axios, Susie Wiles began collecting names to replace Waltz, but kept the process and discussion strictly under wraps.

00:06:15.000 Secretary of State Rubio will fill in on an interim basis.

00:06:18.000 Interim.

00:06:19.000 Now, apparently, one of the original people who has floated for the job of NSA was Steve Witkoff.

00:06:23.000 Now, I don't think that Witkoff wants the job.

00:06:26.000 And the reason Witkoff doesn't want the job is because the NSA is actually an entire apparatus that you have to run.

00:06:31.000 Witkoff's role so far has been flying off to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin or flying off to Qatar or flying off to Saudi Arabia or whatever it is.

00:06:38.000 He's sort of a freewheeling agent in the mix, operating directly for the president of the United States and seems to have the president's ear on a lot of these negotiations.

00:06:48.000 According to Axios, Waltz, Alex Wong, who is his assistant director of the NSA, and many of the National Security Council staffers who already departed were on the more hawkish wing within the administration, were perceived as quote-unquote neocons within the MAGA group.

00:07:01.000 On Iran, both Vance and Wyckoff favored diplomacy.

00:07:03.000 Waltz was much more open to the idea of military strikes.

00:07:06.000 For now, according to Axios, it seems the restraint wing has won that argument and is generally in the ascendancy within Trump's national security team.

00:07:13.000 And one of the sort of open questions is whether a straight wing is trying to say that the United States should not be involved in a strike on Iran, under what circumstances that would change, or whether they're trying to restrain Israel from a strike on Iran, which is a completely separate question.

00:07:26.000 Because obviously Israel has a very strong interest in Iran not gaining a nuclear weapon, considering that Iran has specifically stated and has never stopped saying that once they gain a nuclear weapon, they're using it on the quote-unquote Zionist entity.

00:07:37.000 So, J.D. Vance appeared on Fox News last night.

00:07:41.000 Trying to explain what exactly had happened inside the administration.

00:07:45.000 Why was Mike Walz let go?

00:07:47.000 So he wasn't let go.

00:07:48.000 He is being made ambassador to the United Nations, which, of course, is a Senate-confirmed position.

00:07:52.000 I think you can make a good argument that it's a promotion.

00:07:54.000 But we brought Mike on to do some serious reforms of the National Security Council.

00:07:59.000 He has done that.

00:08:01.000 I like Mike.

00:08:02.000 I think he's a great guy.

00:08:02.000 He's got the trust of both me and the president.

00:08:05.000 But we also thought that he'd make a better U.N. ambassador as we get beyond this stage of the reforms that we've made to the National Security Council.

00:08:12.000 You saw the president announce that Marco Rubio is going to step in as interim leader of the National Security Council.

00:08:18.000 So I,

00:08:19.000 I think the media wants to frame this as a firing.

00:08:22.000 Donald Trump has fired a lot of people.

00:08:24.000 He doesn't give them Senate-confirmed appointments afterwards.

00:08:28.000 Okay, so one of the things that's sort of fascinating about the way that the vice president is phrasing that is we.

00:08:32.000 There's a lot of we, meaning that he was obviously involved in the decision-making around the movement of Mike Waltz.

00:08:38.000 The alternative read here is that Waltz was on the outs with a lot of members of the administration, particularly, again, in these sort of non-peace through strength contingent of foreign policy, and that the president, basically because he didn't like hurting Waltz, I mean, Waltz gave up a very solid congressional seat that's now occupied by Randy Fine in Florida in order to come into the administration very early back to the president.

00:08:57.000 Trump didn't actually want to hurt Waltz, and so he moved him over to the U.N. ambassador position, which is, in fact, a pretty nice position.

00:09:04.000 Again, all of this is sort of Kremlinology, trying to figure out what's going on inside the administration, and it has some pretty significant ramifications for American foreign policy, especially because there's a lot of critique of the man who is now sort of leading American foreign policy in a wide variety of areas, and that, of course, is Steve Whitcoff.

00:09:19.000 So Whitcoff, who I've suggested has not actually achieved any victories that I can see at all in any of the arenas where he has been placed, whether you're talking about the Hamas negotiations to free hostages, including an American hostage, Idon Alexander.

00:09:31.000 Or whether you're talking about the Iran negotiations, where Witkoff doesn't appear to know his ass from his elbow, or whether you're talking about the Russia-Ukraine negotiations, where Steve Witkoff has been over there and then gone on TV and started sort of parroting many of the talking points that Vladimir Putin was putting out there.

00:09:45.000 Let's put it this way.

00:09:46.000 If it is not clear to you yet, I'm deeply unimpressed with Steve Witkoff's diplomatic record.

00:09:50.000 He may be a very nice guy.

00:09:51.000 He may be a businessman.

00:09:53.000 I don't know.

00:09:53.000 I really don't know Steve Witkoff from Adam.

00:09:56.000 I've met him briefly for about 20 seconds one time.

00:09:58.000 I will say...

00:10:00.000 That I am not impressed with the results of his negotiating leisure domain at this point in time.

00:10:05.000 And there are a lot of open questions about Steve Witkoff and his competence.

00:10:08.000 The New York Post ran a piece yesterday suggesting that administration insiders are distressed by his approach to negotiating with both Russia and Iran.

00:10:18.000 According to the New York Post report, Witkoff, who has become President Trump's de facto personal ambassador to Russian President Vladimir Putin, in addition to taking on the Middle East portfolio, takes part in high-level meetings alone.

00:10:29.000 He is even relying on Kremlin translators.

00:10:32.000 Okay, that is an amateur move.

00:10:34.000 Having somebody who works for Vladimir Putin do your translation for you is not exactly an amazing move if you're negotiating a deal.

00:10:40.000 Ahead of Witkoff's most recent meeting with Putin this past Friday, the New York native greeted the Kremlin tyrant like an old friend with no sign of the usual coterie of advisors, experts, and military officers who typically accompany U.S. officials during negotiations.

00:10:52.000 Putin himself did not attend Friday's meeting solo.

00:10:54.000 Instead, he was accompanied by one aide, a guy named Yuri Ushakov, and the head of Moscow's Sovereign Wealth Fund.

00:10:59.000 Now, that in and of itself is a little bit weird.

00:11:01.000 I'm not sure why the head of Moscow's Sovereign Wealth Fund was attending a meeting with Steve Witkoff about an end to the Ukraine-Russia war.

00:11:07.000 What does the Sovereign Wealth Fund of Russia have to do with any of that?

00:11:11.000 Raises some sort of rather interesting questions.

00:11:15.000 Well, this prompted, this New York Post piece, which prompted a lot of heartburn.

00:11:21.000 And inside the sort of Whitcoff team, it prompted tweets from Alex Whitcoff, his son, who's very close with the administration, and Donald Trump Jr., who, of course, is very close with Alex Whitcoff, as well as his brother.

00:11:34.000 Well, this again kind of comes down to what approach is the administration going to take on foreign policy?

00:11:40.000 And there are a lot of mixed signals coming out of the administration.

00:11:44.000 On the one hand, you have Whitcoff, who is going around and attempting to cut deals, deals that...

00:11:48.000 Again, do not reflect sort of the traditional Trump 1.0 peace through strength approach to places like Russia or Iran.

00:11:55.000 And then at the same time, you have President Trump pushing quite hard on a number of sort of pressure points for Russia and for Iran.

00:12:04.000 So, for example, President Trump

00:12:07.000 yesterday was pushing more sanctions on Iran, even as he was saying a little bit earlier this week that he was going to cut a deal with Iran.

00:12:14.000 Very unclear whether this is putting on more sanctions to take them off.

00:12:17.000 Well, these sanctions are largely targeted not at Iran, but at China, particularly because China is the biggest buyer of Iranian oil at this point.

00:12:23.000 Iran had no money when I was president.

00:12:29.000 They were out of money.

00:12:29.000 They were bust.

00:12:31.000 They had no money.

00:12:32.000 They weren't giving it to Hamas. 0.62

00:12:33.000 They weren't giving it to Hezbollah.

00:12:35.000 They weren't giving it to anybody because they didn't have any money.

00:12:38.000 They were just about bust.

00:12:40.000 And in fact, I put sanctions on last night.

00:12:43.000 Any oil that anybody takes from Iran is not allowed to do business in the United States of America.

00:12:51.000 We'll get some more on this in just a moment.

00:12:53.000 First, you know, we're here in Israel for Independence Day.

00:12:55.000 We talked to Mike Huckabee yesterday.

00:12:57.000 Well, Independence Day fell on May 1st.

00:13:00.000 For the people of Israel, however, the concept of freedom has become intertwined with their ongoing challenge.

00:13:04.000 Massive fires breaking out all over the state, for example, set by terrorists.

00:13:08.000 Many people are facing difficult circumstances.

00:13:10.000 They navigate their daily lives amid uncertainty.

00:13:12.000 During these challenging times, it can be hard to find moments of joy and celebration.

00:13:16.000 The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews works to provide essential support for vulnerable populations, ensuring the elderly, the sick, wounded soldiers and families in need that they receive the care they deserve.

00:13:25.000 Your generous gift to the fellowship today will help provide vital aid, including medicine, nutritious meals, safety measures and comfort to those who need it most.

00:13:32.000 Show your support for Israel by making a meaningful contribution.

00:13:35.000 Your gift can make a real difference in someone's life.

00:13:38.000 Make your gift online today at benforthefellowship.org.

00:13:41.000 That's benforthefellowship.org.

00:13:43.000 There's a lot going on here in Israel, a lot of people suffering.

00:13:46.000 You can help out at benforthefellowship.org.

00:13:49.000 Again, that's benforthefellowship.org.

00:13:50.000 God bless and thank you.

00:13:52.000 Also, tax day may have passed, but for millions of Americans, the real trouble is just starting.

00:13:55.000 If you miss that April 15th deadline or you still owe back taxes, the IRS is ramping up enforcement.

00:14:00.000 Every day you wait only makes things worse.

00:14:01.000 With over 5,000 new tax liens filed daily and tools like property seizures, bank levies, wage garnishments, the IRS is applying pressure at levels we have not seen in years.

00:14:10.000 Increased administrative scrutiny means collections are moving fast.

00:14:13.000 The good news, there's still time for Tax Network USA to help.

00:14:15.000 Self-employed, business owner, even if your books are a mess, they've got to be a mess.

00:14:18.000 got it covered.

00:14:19.000 Tax Network USA specializes in cleaning up financial chaos and getting you back on track fast.

00:14:23.000 Even after the deadline, it's not too late to regain control.

00:14:26.000 Your consultation is completely free.

00:14:28.000 Acting right now could stop penalties, threatening letters, and surprise levies before they escalate.

00:14:33.000 Call 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.com slash Shapiro.

00:14:38.000 You might have missed April 15th.

00:14:39.000 You have not yet run out of options.

00:14:40.000 Let Tax Network USA help before the IRS makes the very next move.

00:14:44.000 Call 1-800-958-1000.

00:14:46.000 That's TNUSA.com slash Shapiro to get started.

00:14:52.000 Okay, meanwhile, There were negotiations that were scheduled between the United States and Iran for Saturday.

00:15:00.000 Apparently that has now been rescheduled for logistical reasons.

00:15:03.000 Apparently there was never a hard date on the schedule, according to the United States.

00:15:08.000 The Iranians say this is being done for logistical reasons.

00:15:11.000 Oman is claiming that it was logistical in nature.

00:15:15.000 Iran is saying that what they really, really want is a deal that will allow for peaceful...

00:15:22.000 Nuclear development, which of course is a lie.

00:15:24.000 Iran does not need nuclear development at all.

00:15:26.000 It's one of the most oil and natural gas rich countries on planet Earth.

00:15:29.000 The idea that Iran, which is an underdeveloped economy, they're not using that energy for AI, let's put it this way.

00:15:36.000 Iran is not desperately creating nuclear facilities because they are so in hock with the Green Revolution.

00:15:43.000 That's not what's happening here.

00:15:45.000 The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Bahai, issued a statement describing the talks as postponed at the request of Oman's foreign minister.

00:15:52.000 He said Iran remained committed to reaching a fair and lasting agreement.

00:15:56.000 A U.S. source said that America had never confirmed its participation in a fourth round of talks, but the source said the U.S. expects the talks to take place in the near future.

00:16:04.000 So, again, there's a lot of sort of mixed signals coming out of the administration with regard to what an Iran deal would look like.

00:16:11.000 The Washington Post, by the way, is cheering.

00:16:13.000 The idea of a JCPOA 2.0, an Obama deal 2.0.

00:16:19.000 Although even the Washington Post, I will say, it's kind of amazing.

00:16:22.000 The editorial board of the Washington Post is now free to admit that Obama's JCPOA deal was really bad, that the Iran deal in 2015 was a bad deal.

00:16:30.000 Now they still want a bad deal, the Washington Post.

00:16:33.000 They just want it to be slightly less bad than the Obama deal.

00:16:37.000 Quote, the onus is now on Trump and his team to show they can negotiate a better deal, one that doesn't end up looking like the old one.

00:16:44.000 Well, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State and now interim National Security Advisor, he was on with Sean Hannity last night, and he discussed what the United States' goals in the Iran Talks are.

00:16:55.000 The only countries in the world that enrich uranium are the ones that have nuclear weapons.

00:16:59.000 Iran, they're claiming they don't want a weapon, but what they're basically asking is to be the only non-weapon country in the world.

00:17:06.000 That's enriching Uranium.

00:17:08.000 And the level at which they enrich it is really not relevant, per se, because really, if you have the ability to enrich at 3.67%, It only takes a few weeks to get to 20%, and then 60%, and then the 80% and 90% that you need for a weapon.

00:17:22.000 And so that really is the path forward here.

00:17:24.000 Iran simply needs to say, we've agreed to no longer enrich, we're going to have reactors because we want nuclear energy, and we're going to import enriched uranium.

00:17:32.000 This is an opportunity for them if they take it.

00:17:34.000 And this is the best opportunity they're going to have.

00:17:37.000 President Trump is a president of peace.

00:17:38.000 He doesn't want a war.

00:17:39.000 He doesn't want conflict.

00:17:41.000 None of us do.

00:17:42.000 And there's a path forward here.

00:17:43.000 But what cannot happen...

00:17:45.000 It's to live in a world where Iran has a nuclear weapon. 0.96

00:17:48.000 The path forward has been given to them, and now it's a matter of whether or not they're going to take it.

00:17:52.000 And the president was very, very clear.

00:17:54.000 He would lead the effort to stop them from ever achieving that nuclear weapon.

00:17:59.000 And that statement was obvious in terms of that he would use military force to destroy those facilities.

00:18:05.000 We have the capacity, obviously, to do it.

00:18:08.000 But back to this question, would we need American inspectors and American scientists to shut it down?

00:18:14.000 And would that have to be part of the deal?

00:18:16.000 And anywhere, anyplace, anytime, American inspectors, would they have to agree to that in your mind?

00:18:21.000 I think you would have to allow Americans as part of, you can send, you know, maybe there'll be French inspectors, there'll be Italian inspectors, there'll be Saudis, whoever, but I think you cannot basically say we will not allow any Americans.

00:18:32.000 You also have to make sure, if you really want to prevent a nuclear program, and you're not building a nuclear weapon, then you should open all your facilities.

00:18:39.000 You know, one of the failures of the Obama nuclear deal with Iran is that you could not inspect military sites.

00:18:47.000 Well, if you're making nuclear weapons, you would probably make them on Okay, so, you know, Marco Rubio, again, taking a very strong position on the negotiations,

00:19:04.000 but he's not the one leading the negotiations.

00:19:06.000 Steve Witkoff is leading the negotiations.

00:19:08.000 So all these sort of mixed signals are certainly leading to, as I say, a lot of Kremlinology, what exactly is happening inside the administration.

00:19:14.000 Meanwhile, the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, put out a message on Twitter yesterday, quote, message to Iran.

00:19:20.000 We see your lethal support to the Houthis. 0.81

00:19:21.000 We know exactly what you are doing.

00:19:23.000 You know very well what the U.S. military is capable of, and you were warned.

00:19:26.000 You will pay the consequence at the time and place of our choosing.

00:19:29.000 So again, strong messages being sent to Iran via the Secretary of Defense.

00:19:33.000 But the question is, who's in President Trump's ear?

00:19:35.000 What advice is President Trump taking?

00:19:37.000 Who seems to have the upper hand in discussions over how harsh the United States should be in these Iran negotiations?

00:19:43.000 And is there really a possibility?

00:19:45.000 That the United States would participate in some sort of military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if they don't actually denuclearize entirely.

00:19:53.000 These are all open questions.

00:19:54.000 And frankly, no one knows the answers to those questions except for the president of the United States.

00:19:59.000 Now, meanwhile, the president did cut a very good deal with Ukraine the other day.

00:20:03.000 We talked about this on the program.

00:20:04.000 It's good.

00:20:05.000 This deal between the United States and Ukraine, this rare earth minerals deal, which is something Ukraine should have signed on to in February.

00:20:10.000 Well, they finally came around and they did it.

00:20:12.000 Basically, the rare earth minerals deal.

00:20:14.000 Inked on Wednesday, according to the New York Post, after months of negotiations, created a shared investment fund to which both nations will contribute, including through oil, gas, and mineral rights licenses sold in Ukraine.

00:20:24.000 The profits are going to be split 50-50.

00:20:25.000 So the United States is not taking money and just throwing it into this fund.

00:20:28.000 Basically, we are going to earn credit toward our total contribution equal to the cost of military equipment, technology, or training that we send across the Atlantic.

00:20:36.000 So basically, the deal is that additional military aid we provide to Ukraine is going to be counted against whatever we would have had to pay into this fund.

00:20:44.000 So we're trading military aid in some ways for the rare earth minerals development from Ukraine, which, again, we need rare earth minerals because we're not going to get them from China anymore, presumably.

00:20:54.000 Ukraine requires military aid in order to stand up against the Russian onslaught.

00:20:58.000 It is a good thing.

00:21:00.000 Full stop.

00:21:00.000 It is a good thing that President Trump is committing to a free and independent Ukraine.

00:21:05.000 That is an important thing.

00:21:08.000 So the agreement.

00:21:10.000 Does not preclude the United States from dispatching remaining military aid approved by Congress under former President Biden.

00:21:15.000 It doesn't require the U.S. to sell any military aid to Kiev either.

00:21:19.000 It's not clear how much is supposed to go into the fund, but the bottom line is that instead of this just being pure military aid, we are now getting something in return.

00:21:27.000 And for the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians see this as a way of ensuring continued American support.

00:21:35.000 One source familiar with Kiev's strategy.

00:21:38.000 Originally suggested that they thought that maybe they could leverage the president into a better deal for Ukraine.

00:21:42.000 That did not happen.

00:21:44.000 However, the representative of the Ukrainians has said that this is a good deal for both sides.

00:21:53.000 The Kremlin recognizes the significance.

00:21:55.000 The deal was blasted by Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev, who again, everybody in the Russian government is a cutout for Putin.

00:22:02.000 Praise the U.S. leader for making a deal with a nation that will, quote, soon disappear.

00:22:06.000 Quote, Trump has finally pressured the Kiev regime to pay for USAID with mineral resources.

00:22:09.000 Now the country that is about to disappear will have to use its national wealth to pay for military supplies.

00:22:15.000 So again, that does not sound like a Russia that is ready to come to the table.

00:22:20.000 Again, the White House itself, in its actual explanation of the minerals deal, suggested this partnership represents the United States taking an economic stake in securing a free The language of this agreement is some of the most pro-Ukrainian language that has come out under the Trump administration.

00:22:50.000 That is a positive shift that is necessary.

00:22:53.000 If you want Russia to come to the table, the United States can't be threatening to walk away from Ukraine.

00:23:00.000 According to the White House's fact sheet, quote, President Trump envisioned this partnership between the Americans and the Ukrainians to show both sides' commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.

00:23:11.000 So, and by the way, no state company or person who financed or supplied the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from the reconstruction of Ukraine, including in participation in projects supported by fund resources.

00:23:21.000 So good for Ukraine, good for the United States, good for President Trump.

00:23:24.000 Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham is apparently, according to the Wall Street Journal, Forging ahead on a plan to impose new sanctions on Russia and steep tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil, gas, and uranium.

00:23:35.000 This, again, is the right approach.

00:23:36.000 If you want Russia to come to the table, the only way they are going to do that is through more leverage.

00:23:40.000 And the Trump administration is, in fact, responding to the reality, which is, as I've said, President Trump is a reality-based president.

00:23:47.000 When something goes wrong, he shifts and he moves.

00:23:49.000 And so the idea that he could just pressure Ukraine to the table and Russia would magically come to the table, that didn't materialize.

00:23:55.000 And so President Trump is now shifting and moving.

00:23:58.000 The South Carolina Republican said in an interview, support for his bill crossed the critical threshold of 60 co-sponsors on Wednesday, meaning it has enough votes to overcome a Senate filibuster.

00:24:06.000 By the end of the week, according to Graham, the bill will have at least 67 co-sponsors, which is enough to even override a potential presidential veto.

00:24:14.000 That list of co-sponsors is evenly divided across the aisle.

00:24:17.000 It includes the Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

00:24:18.000 It also includes members of the Senate Republican leadership team.

00:24:23.000 So, unclear if it makes a floor vote, if President Trump were to oppose it, the White House is not commenting on it.

00:24:27.000 So far.

00:24:28.000 But again, more leverage against Russia is the thing that is going to get them to the table, not sort of the carrots and massages approaches that has been retailed by Steve Witkoff so far.

00:24:37.000 In other good moves from the Trump administration, President Trump has now signed an executive order to terminate federal funding for NPR as well as PBS.

00:24:45.000 That is a positive move.

00:24:46.000 NPR is a disaster area.

00:24:47.000 NPR is a leftist agitprop outlet that is paid for with American taxpayer dollars.

00:24:52.000 There's no reason that NPR requires that level of support.

00:24:55.000 We operate in the media space.

00:24:57.000 We hear at The Daily Wire.

00:24:58.000 In the private sector, we take no government money.

00:25:00.000 NPR certainly has the capacity to do the same.

00:25:03.000 President Trump wrote in the order, government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary, but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.

00:25:11.000 Trump has directed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end indirect funding for NPR and PBS, including by ensuring licensees and permittees of public radio and TV stations, as well as any other recipients of CBB funds, do not use federal funds for NPR and PBS.

00:25:26.000 This is a great move by President Trump.

00:25:28.000 It is something that has long overdue.

00:25:29.000 NPR has been, again, a left-wing Democratic agiprop outlet for as long as I have been alive.

00:25:34.000 So that is a very positive move by President Trump.

00:25:37.000 So, again, a lot of good things happened yesterday.

00:25:39.000 Ranging from that Ukraine rare earth minerals deal to the Trump EO.

00:25:43.000 And we'll still have to see the fallout inside the national security establishment because things remain up in the air.

00:25:49.000 We'll get to more on this in a moment.

00:25:50.000 First, let's talk about that car that you own but you don't use.

00:25:52.000 You know, the one in your front yard, the one that you're paying to keep it registered, insured.

00:25:58.000 It just takes up space.

00:25:59.000 It's rusting, not doing anybody any good.

00:26:00.000 Well, let me tell you what you should do about that.

00:26:02.000 You should give Cars for Kids a call.

00:26:04.000 Have them take care of it for you.

00:26:05.000 That's right.

00:26:05.000 Just give them the info.

00:26:06.000 They will come to you as soon as the next day.

00:26:08.000 Take that car off your hands at no cost to you.

00:26:10.000 Even better, they'll turn that car into funds to help kids.

00:26:13.000 They take care of all the paperwork and logistics and you walk away with a tax-deductible receipt for the sale price of the car, a vacation voucher, and space in your driveway for your new car.

00:26:21.000 Don't wait.

00:26:22.000 Call 1-877-CARS4KIDS or go to cars4kids.org slash Ben.

00:26:26.000 That's cars with a K, the number four, to donate now.

00:26:29.000 It takes just two minutes.

00:26:30.000 Give them your information.

00:26:30.000 They take over from there.

00:26:32.000 They've done this over a million times.

00:26:33.000 Let them help you as well.

00:26:35.000 cars4kids.org slash Ben.

00:26:36.000 Remember, that's cars with a K. Cars4Kids.org slash Ben.

00:26:41.000 Cars4Kids.org slash Ben.

00:26:42.000 They've been doing this for years.

00:26:43.000 And why not turn a liability into an asset for somebody else and a tax write-off?

00:26:47.000 Cars4Kids.org slash Ben.

00:26:50.000 Also, with Mother's Day just around the corner, I want to share an amazing organization making a real difference for moms in need.

00:26:55.000 Preborn.

00:26:56.000 Their network of clinics provides love, support, and hope to pregnant women who are feeling scared, alone, pressured about their pregnancy decisions.

00:27:02.000 These choices can affect not just their baby's life, but their own emotional well-being as well.

00:27:06.000 When a woman walks into a preborn clinic, she's welcomed with compassion, offered a free ultrasound so she can see and hear the little life growing inside her.

00:27:12.000 And you know what?

00:27:13.000 Most of the time, this powerful moment helps mom choose life. 1.00

00:27:16.000 This Mother's Day, you can help both a mom in crisis and her baby.

00:27:19.000 Just $28 provides one ultrasound.

00:27:22.000 $140 covers five.

00:27:23.000 Every dollar goes directly to supporting moms and babies.

00:27:26.000 Plus, monthly sponsors receive photos and stories of the lives they've helped to save.

00:27:30.000 Want to get involved?

00:27:30.000 It's easy.

00:27:31.000 Just dial pound 250, say baby, or visit preborn.com slash Ben.

00:27:35.000 Make a difference this Mother's Day by supporting both moms and their babies.

00:27:38.000 Again, that's preborn.com slash Ben.

00:27:41.000 Get involved today.

00:27:42.000 Impact generations to come. 0.96

00:27:43.000 And meanwhile, with regard to illegal immigration, every day that goes by, the Chris Van Hollen, senator from Maryland, moron, decision to go down to El Salvador and hang out with a suspected MS-13 member looks worse and worse.

00:27:56.000 The newest breaking news on that front.

00:28:01.000 It turns out that she actually called the cops back in 2020, and there's audio of her doing so, pleading with a judge for protection from her husband in 2020.

00:28:14.000 Seems like a delightful person to have in the country.

00:28:16.000 Here's the tape.

00:28:18.000 I have a lot of police reports, and I kept trying to get to the door basement to try to open the door, and then he pushed me.

00:28:24.000 So then when I was able to go outside to get a phone, I called 911 from a disconnected phone.

00:28:31.000 Now they took a long time to get to the house.

00:28:34.000 It was probably like 20, 30 minutes.

00:28:37.000 So I saw a neighbor walking his dog, and I opened the door, and I was like, "Help!"

00:28:42.000 And then when he heard me, like, he grabbed me from my hair, and then he slapped me.

00:28:45.000 And then the neighbor, like, he didn't know what to do.

00:28:47.000 He didn't know what to react.

00:28:48.000 I have pictures of the evidence, like, all the bruises.

00:28:51.000 Because even on Wednesday, he hit me, like, around, like, 3 in the morning.

00:28:55.000 He would just wake up and, like, hit me.

00:28:57.000 And then last Saturday for my daughter's birthday party, before I went to my daughter's birthday party...

00:29:02.000 He slapped me three times, and then last week I did call the police.

00:29:06.000 My sister called the police because he hit me in front of my sister.

00:29:11.000 Okay, so he sounds like a delightful person.

00:29:13.000 So I'm glad that Democrats have decided to resonate to him.

00:29:16.000 That apparently includes Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin, who is one of the impeachment leaders, you will recall, who says that actually Joe Biden was great at removing people who shouldn't be here, which is weird because this guy was still here.

00:29:27.000 But in any case...

00:29:28.000 He also adds that Abrego Garcia's knuckles did not show that he was Tren d 'Aragua, that he was MS-13.

00:29:35.000 I don't understand the necessity for this from Democrats.

00:29:37.000 If you want this guy, this person who seems really like a terrible person, to have due process, that is an argument that I think people across the aisle should agree with.

00:29:47.000 Due process is, in fact, a necessary prerequisite of our functioning of law.

00:29:51.000 If you want to make the case that he's actually like a decent fellow and that everybody's misinterpreting it, this is where Democrats can't help themselves.

00:29:57.000 Why do you always have to say the stupidest version of the argument?

00:30:00.000 Here's Jamie Raskin.

00:30:03.000 We know how to remove people from the country who should not be here. 1.00

00:30:07.000 President Biden's administration did that.

00:30:09.000 We know how to do it legally.

00:30:14.000 He was sent to the dictator of El Salvador because he has a tattoo on his right arm which was mistakenly associated with Tren de Aragua.

00:30:24.000 In fact, the tattoo is of a soccer ball topped with a crown which signifies his favorite soccer club, Real Madrid.

00:30:33.000 Had there been any kind of due process fair hearing, he would have been able quickly to explain the government's error.

00:30:41.000 And there being no other evidence against him, he would have been released.

00:30:45.000 So, I'm just, I'm confused.

00:30:48.000 Why do you always have to defend the bad guys?

00:30:49.000 You don't have to do that.

00:30:50.000 Just say that you want due process.

00:30:53.000 Meanwhile, another federal judge, individual federal judges across the country signing into chat, another federal judge, a U.S. District Judge named Fernando Rodriguez Jr. in the Southern District of Texas, is ruling against President Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to detain and deport alleged members of a foreign gang.

00:31:10.000 He says, quote, This judge, by the way, was in fact nominated by President Trump during his first term.

00:31:25.000 So the question here as to whether the Alien Enemies Act could in fact be invoked in order to deport Venezuelan illegal immigrants because the act gives the president I mean,

00:31:54.000 it's just called federal law.

00:31:58.000 But this gives him more plenary power to sort of do so with presumably fewer layers.

00:32:08.000 So, you know, we'll have to see how that plays out at the Supreme Court level.

00:32:11.000 Again, you can hold all of these thoughts in your head at the same time, that due process according to legal standards ought to be applied, and also that the people that Trump is trying to deport are pretty much all people who should not be in the United States. 0.59

00:32:23.000 And meanwhile, the President of the United States continues to push back against the DEI regime put in place by Joe Biden and Team Caroline Lovett at the White House yesterday, attacked at DEI.

00:32:33.000 Full scale.

00:32:34.000 It was great.

00:32:35.000 Here she was.

00:32:36.000 President Trump stood up for the Constitution's promise of colorblind equality before the law, so he terminated radical DEI preferencing and federal contracting and directed federal agencies to relentlessly combat private sector discrimination.

00:32:51.000 DEI seeks to divide and pit Americans against each other based on immutable characteristics.

00:32:56.000 President Trump put an end to it.

00:32:58.000 In President Trump's America...

00:33:00.000 Individual dignity, hard work, and excellence are the only things that will determine if you get ahead.

00:33:05.000 And that obviously should be the standard.

00:33:08.000 Stephen Miller also stopped by the White House press room in order to explain the destruction of the DEI policies that were being pushed by the Biden administration.

00:33:15.000 One of the most significant crises that President Trump inherited upon taking office was the wave of racial discrimination, so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies that have taken over both public sector

00:33:30.000 and.

00:33:30.000 Well, again, he is right about that as well.

00:33:37.000 Now, with all this important work happening, the biggest thing, I keep saying it over and over, the biggest thing is that if you want President Trump to continue to unleash successes, you need Republicans not to make stupid mistakes.

00:33:47.000 We'll get to the trade war in a moment and what the latest is there.

00:33:50.000 But the latest stupid mistake that is possibly on the table here is the possibility of Marjorie Taylor Greene running for Georgia Senate. 0.75

00:33:57.000 Let us be clear.

00:33:58.000 If she wins the primary, she will lose the general to John Ossoff.

00:34:00.000 That is a deeply winnable seat in Georgia.

00:34:02.000 The polls right now show that if Ossoff were to run against Marjorie Taylor Greene, he would win outright a sheer majority of the vote.

00:34:10.000 He would beat her by 15 points, 54 to 39. There is no reason for that whatsoever.

00:34:16.000 Zero.

00:34:17.000 Marjorie Taylor Greene is fine where she is.

00:34:19.000 If she's going to be in her district, she's popular in the district, that's fine. 0.66

00:34:22.000 The idea is she's going to win a statewide race in Georgia over John Ossoff.

00:34:26.000 And that Republicans are going to blow another winnable Senate seat because they've decided to nominate a sort of passionate defender, the most passionate defender of Trump.

00:34:35.000 How about this?

00:34:36.000 How about we get a Georgia senator who is in line with President Trump's agenda and actually can sit in the Senate?

00:34:42.000 So right now, there's been a lot of talk about the possibility of Brian Kemp running for Senate in Georgia.

00:34:47.000 If he were to run for Senate, he would defeat John Ossoff, according to that very same poll.

00:34:51.000 It turns out that candidate equality makes an awfully big difference.

00:34:55.000 Cutting off your nose to spite your face for Republican primary voters is a terrible strategy.

00:35:00.000 There's a reason why Georgia, which went for President Trump pretty easily in the last election cycle, has two Democratic senators.

00:35:06.000 And the reason is, number one, because President Trump decided back in 2021 that he was going to intervene in the senatorial election for no apparent reason.

00:35:15.000 And then number two, Republicans nominated some pretty bad candidates in places like Arizona and in Georgia.

00:35:20.000 How about nominate better candidates and take the Senate seats?

00:35:22.000 That seems to be a much more necessary precondition to the success of President Trump.

00:35:27.000 Meanwhile, in other news that's sort of fascinating, apparently Alberta, which is the province of Canada, is now deciding whether or not they want to remain political.

00:35:35.000 So, how exactly does the process work in Canada?

00:35:38.000 I asked our friends and sponsors over at Perplexity what exactly happens under the Canadian Constitution.

00:35:43.000 According to Perplexity, the Canadian Constitution does not grant provinces a unilateral right to secede.

00:35:49.000 The Supreme Court of Canada, in a landmark 1998, Quebec secession reference.

00:35:53.000 Clarified secession would require a constitutional amendment, which in turn necessitates negotiations involving the federal government and all the provinces.

00:36:00.000 So basically, you have to have a referendum on whether a province wishes to secede with a clear majority, not clear exactly how much a clear majority is.

00:36:08.000 Then there are constitutional negotiations between the federal government and the provinces.

00:36:13.000 And Alberta has been considering all of this.

00:36:16.000 Apparently, Premier Danielle Smith is introducing legislation to make it easier to initiate a referendum.

00:36:21.000 On separation, again, this is a piece of leverage to be used by Alberta in negotiations with the federal government of Canada.

00:36:27.000 So Danielle Smith is a very conservative leader.

00:36:30.000 She's the Premier of Alberta.

00:36:32.000 I've met Premier Smith, very conservative along a wide variety of lines, obviously very pro-Canada, very opposed to the tariff regime that President Trump is hitting Canada with, but very, very opposed to the left-wing policy promoted by the Liberal Party of Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney.

00:36:47.000 She says, as Premier, I will not permit the status quo to continue.

00:36:50.000 Albertans are proud Canadians that want this nation to be strong, prosperous, and united, but we will no longer tolerate having our industries threatened and our resources landlocked by Ottawa.

00:36:59.000 So she is pushing for concessions from the national government.

00:37:03.000 Mark Carney is promising some changes.

00:37:06.000 There is the possibility of what is called Wexit.

00:37:09.000 So that was something that was pushed back in 2019, where there was a serious move to take Alberta completely out of Canada.

00:37:18.000 So it'll be fascinating to see how that plays out for Mark Carney.

00:37:21.000 Again, the fact that he won the election is a referendum, I think, on the fact that Canadians hated Justin Trudeau, but also a backlash to President Trump and his trade war and comments about Canada.

00:37:32.000 It didn't solve all of Mark Carney's problems by any stretch of the imagination.

00:37:35.000 Speaking of which, when it comes to the tariffs, again, the statistics from a couple of days ago show that the GDP actually shrank, and that is almost entirely due to the tariff war.

00:37:44.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, gross domestic product shrank 0.3% in the first estimate by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

00:37:50.000 Most of the damage came from soaring imports.

00:37:53.000 Imported goods and services rose 41.3% in the quarter, goods alone by almost 51%.

00:37:59.000 Imports subtracted a startling 5.03% from GDP.

00:38:06.000 A tax increase in production shock as large as Mr. Trump's tariff were bound to do economic harm, according to the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

00:38:13.000 So, J.D. Vance, vice president.

00:38:14.000 Was confronted by Brett Baer on Fox News.

00:38:16.000 About the shrinking economic numbers, here's what he had to say.

00:38:20.000 The economy shrank.

00:38:22.000 First time in three years.

00:38:24.000 People are pointing to the tariff policy.

00:38:26.000 There are people looking at their 401ks that are worried.

00:38:30.000 What do you tell them?

00:38:32.000 Is this going to work?

00:38:34.000 So the first thing is, when you talk about the economy, this is Joe Biden's economy.

00:38:39.000 And we inherited...

00:38:41.000 $2 trillion of debt, the highest peacetime deficits in American history, a $1.2 trillion trade deficit, which fundamentally means we're not making enough of our own stuff.

00:38:51.000 And the president came in and he said this is not always going to be easy.

00:38:55.000 It would have been very easy for Donald Trump to do what administrations past have done, which is borrow a lot of money and continue fueling the national debt.

00:39:02.000 He said, no, we need a reset.

00:39:04.000 We need American workers to have better jobs.

00:39:06.000 We need to protect the jobs that they have right now.

00:39:08.000 and we need to be more self-reliant as an economy, which, by the way, will drive down those skyrocketing levels of debt that we've seen.

00:39:14.000 That is what he promised he was going to do.

00:39:16.000 And he came in and we've started that process.

00:39:20.000 Okay, so again, the idea here that he inherited Joe Biden's terrible economy and then he had to fix it.

00:39:25.000 And what we're seeing right now as a result of that, once you own the economy, you own the economy.

00:39:29.000 Once you take the signal step of declaring a trade war on the rest of Earth, you do in fact own that.

00:39:35.000 That's the reality.

00:39:36.000 Now, maybe everything plays out according to script.

00:39:38.000 Maybe it all ends up being fine.

00:39:40.000 America has a more durable manufacturing industry.

00:39:43.000 The economy recovers and all the rest.

00:39:45.000 Maybe.

00:39:46.000 Right now, the weekly jobless claims have surged to $241,000.

00:39:51.000 That is an increase of about $18,000 from the prior period, higher than the Dow Jones estimate for $225,000, according to the Labor Department.

00:39:59.000 GM, as we've mentioned, faces up to a $5 billion tariff bill in 2025.

00:40:03.000 They've now slashed their outlook.

00:40:07.000 They had a profit margin that they were projecting that was going to be between $11 billion and $12.5 billion.

00:40:13.000 They've now moved that down to about $8 billion.

00:40:16.000 It'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

00:40:18.000 McDonald's is starting to see a decline in spending, which is pretty fascinating because, again, that's kind of cheap staple food.

00:40:24.000 I mean, unfortunately, but it is for a lot of people.

00:40:26.000 The burger giant posted a 3% drop in revenue in the first quarter.

00:40:29.000 Same-store sales in the U.S. dropped 3.6% from the prior year, the steepest decline since 2020.

00:40:36.000 So some of that is, you know, maybe people becoming a little more health conscious, but a lot of that is just a decline in spending generally.

00:40:44.000 The oil industry is taking a beating right now.

00:40:46.000 The reason the oil industry is taking a beating is because of the trade war.

00:40:49.000 There's less demand for American oil.

00:40:51.000 Less demand means the price goes down.

00:40:52.000 Prices going down means that there is less development of oil and natural gas, which runs directly up against some of the stuff that Secretary Doug Burgum is trying to do over Department of the Interior.

00:41:02.000 He's been trying to unleash U.S. energy dominance through deregulation.

00:41:05.000 But if the price of oil drops too low, there's no real reason for people to drill more.

00:41:09.000 There's no real reason for people to develop new energy if there appears to be a glut of supply.

00:41:15.000 Doug Burgum, we actually had reporters who went with Secretary Burgum out into the field over on Morning Wire, which, by the way, you guys should go check that out.

00:41:23.000 It's a great show, Morning Wire, and is now available on video.

00:41:26.000 Totally worth the watch over at Daily Wire.

00:41:28.000 Go check it out right now.

00:41:30.000 But Secretary Burgum has been trying to drive up energy production. 1.00

00:41:32.000 Hard to do that when the price is.

00:41:37.000 So, you know, what exactly is going to be the next step here?

00:41:40.000 Well, China may be starting to waver a little bit.

00:41:44.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, China said it was weighing starting talks with the United States, but only if Washington shows sincerity through concrete measures, such as by canceling the tariffs against Beijing.

00:41:53.000 The ministry spokesperson said, China's position is consistent.

00:41:56.000 If you want to fight, we'll fight.

00:41:57.000 If you want to talk, our door is wide open.

00:41:59.000 If the U.S. wants to talk, it should show sincerity and be prepared to act in correcting its erroneous actions and canceling unilateral tariffs.

00:42:06.000 So China wants some signal from Trump that he's backing down.

00:42:09.000 President Trump obviously doesn't want to give that signal, so it may be that this tariff war lasts a little longer than people are currently expecting, including the markets.

00:42:17.000 Axios says that China is not backing down in the game of chicken with President Trump.

00:42:22.000 China says it sent around 15% of its exports worth $525 billion to the U.S. Last year, about three times what flowed in the opposite direction.

00:42:30.000 New export orders are already falling sharply, pretending empty shelves and price hikes in the United States.

00:42:37.000 China, of course, does have the unique ability to simply cram it down on its own constituents. 0.96

00:42:41.000 I mean, the people who live in China, I mean, it's an unfortunate reality, but it turns out that China is a pretty terrible place and they don't care very much about their citizens. 1.00

00:42:50.000 So, China's being hurt by the trade war, but can they take more pain than the U.S.?

00:42:53.000 I mean, typically speaking, yes, because tyrannies can take more pain, at least on a policy level, than democracies can.

00:43:00.000 Already, folks, it's a Friday, and that means it's time to do a little bit of nonsense with regard to the culture.

00:43:04.000 So, my friend Matt Walsh, he did a review, apparently, of Revenge of the Sith.

00:43:10.000 I know it's a little weird, because Revenge of the Sith originally came out in 2005, but the 20th anniversary means that it was re-released in theaters recently.

00:43:18.000 And Matt was very upset.

00:43:20.000 He took his kids to see it, and he did not like the movie.

00:43:23.000 Now, my own opinion on Revenge of the Sith is that the first half has some flaws, and the second half of Revenge of the Sith is actually quite great.

00:43:29.000 There's some rough dialogue, for sure, but basically everything from the execution of Order 66 on in Revenge of the Sith is really good canon.

00:43:38.000 Like, it's good Star Wars canon.

00:43:40.000 Now, Matt didn't like it very much at all.

00:43:42.000 Here's some of what he had to say.

00:43:44.000 Whether through some sort of genetic anomaly or more likely through pro-Star Wars brainwashing from their mother, who my kids are now Star Wars fans, and they really wanted to see the third film in the prequel series in theaters, which has just been re-released,

00:44:00.000 and so I agreed.

00:44:02.000 And after suffering again through the entire nine-hour runtime, or what felt like it, I can confidently say that Revenge of the Sith is...

00:44:13.000 Even worse than I remember.

00:44:15.000 Like, a lot worse.

00:44:17.000 I remember it as a boring, miserable film, but I guess I had blocked out many of the details subconsciously attempting to save myself from reliving the trauma.

00:44:26.000 This movie is outrageously, offensively bad.

00:44:30.000 You could, and I'm not, I don't just, I'm not saying this for effect, you could make a case that it's like the worst film ever made.

00:44:37.000 And, sad to say, it's competing with more than one other Star Wars title for the top of that list.

00:44:43.000 I mean, no.

00:44:44.000 I'm sorry, Matt.

00:44:45.000 First of all, there are way worse Star Wars films, namely the entire last trilogy that they did, the entire Rise of Skywalker trilogy, not good at all.

00:44:55.000 Like, serious problems.

00:44:57.000 We reviewed all of them.

00:44:58.000 The first two movies in the prequels, way worse than Revenge of the Sith.

00:45:03.000 Now, again, I think that some of Matt's criticisms here I'm going to agree with.

00:45:08.000 At the same time, the sort of overall idea this is the worst movie ever made or one of the worst movies ever made.

00:45:13.000 He needs to see more movies.

00:45:15.000 I've seen a lot of truly awful films.

00:45:17.000 Truly, truly awful films.

00:45:18.000 I mean, has he ever seen The Shape of Water?

00:45:20.000 Ooh, complete stinker. 0.95

00:45:22.000 Anyway, here is Matt going off on the dialogue.

00:45:24.000 And again, I'm going to agree with some of these critiques, I will admit.

00:45:26.000 First of all, as many people have pointed out over the years, but I must reiterate, the dialogue is atrocious.

00:45:33.000 George Lucas, it would seem, has never heard humans speak.

00:45:37.000 He writes dialogue like I imagine an alien would write dialogue if the only thing he knew about the human race he learned by watching daytime soap operas.

00:45:46.000 There is not one moment where the script reaches even like a C grade.

00:45:51.000 It is the worst dialogue I've ever heard in a mainstream Hollywood film.

00:45:55.000 It is shockingly bad.

00:45:57.000 Last summer, my kids used one of our phones to make a movie, as they called it, where they pretended to be pirates or something.

00:46:05.000 And the dialogue in their three-minute pirate movie was better than anything George Lucas came up with.

00:46:13.000 So just to give one infamous example, in a scene early in the film, Anakin, played with the charisma of a metal folding chair by Hayden Christensen, goes up to Padme, played by Natalie Portman, and says, You're so beautiful.

00:46:27.000 And then Padme responds, That's because I'm so in love.

00:46:31.000 To which Anakin says, No.

00:46:34.000 It's because I'm so in love with you.

00:46:38.000 That is actual dialogue in this movie.

00:46:41.000 It commits every sin of bad script writing.

00:46:44.000 It is clunky.

00:46:44.000 It's on the nose.

00:46:45.000 It doesn't sound natural at all.

00:46:47.000 Humans do not speak this way.

00:46:48.000 Even humans in galaxies far, far away.

00:46:50.000 Unless they're living on planet Cheeseball in the lame dork galaxy.

00:46:54.000 This is not how humans or any other species of sentient life forms speak or would speak.

00:47:00.000 Okay, I can't disagree with that part.

00:47:02.000 That part I agree with, Matt.

00:47:03.000 I'm sorry.

00:47:04.000 And actually, that's not even the worst dialogue in the film.

00:47:05.000 The single worst piece of dialogue in the film, there are multiple nominees.

00:47:09.000 There's the part where Anakin and Obi-Wan are arguing, and he's talking about how only a Sith deals in absolutes, which is, in fact, an absolute.

00:47:20.000 So, I mean, there's all sorts of problems.

00:47:22.000 I think my favorite bad line is when Yoda, who obviously has some sort of syntax problem because he's constantly putting his verbs where they should not be.

00:47:31.000 There's one point where Yoda, He's trying to convince Obi-Wan not to look at the security tapes of Anakin murdering a bunch of children.

00:47:37.000 And he says, if into the security recordings you go, only pain will you find.

00:47:42.000 It's like, oh no, that is not good.

00:47:44.000 So again, I'm not going to disagree with every aspect of Matt's review here.

00:47:49.000 He also ripped into the acting.

00:47:51.000 And to make matters worse, the acting is uniformly bad, in some cases grotesquely bad.

00:47:56.000 Now, granted, the actors were given the impossible task of delivering George Lucas dialogue, which is the modern film industry equivalent of, like, pulling the sword from the stone.

00:48:04.000 There may be some actor out there in the world who can make this crap sound good, but he's never stepped forward.

00:48:10.000 His existence is only a legend.

00:48:11.000 Maybe Daniel Day-Lewis could do it.

00:48:13.000 I'm not sure.

00:48:14.000 But I do know that Hayden Christensen can't.

00:48:16.000 Neither can Natalie Portman, Ewan McGregor, Samuel L. Jackson, who are all terrible in this film.

00:48:21.000 Even R2-D2's performance fell flat and uninspired.

00:48:26.000 Reportedly, I read this, that George Lucas wanted to cast Tupac in the role that ultimately went to Samuel L. Jackson, which makes Tupac's death perhaps a blessing in disguise.

00:48:36.000 At least he was saved from the embarrassment of being in this movie.

00:48:40.000 Okay, so the acting is not uniformly bad.

00:48:43.000 Natalie Portman is quite terrible in the whole series. 0.80

00:48:45.000 And Hayden Christensen, who actually turns out to be a pretty good actor in some other stuff.

00:48:49.000 Like, if you ever watch Hayden Christensen in a movie called Shattered Glass, he's actually pretty great.

00:48:53.000 There's no question that George Lucas has some problems with actors.

00:48:57.000 He doesn't get the greatest performance.

00:48:59.000 But, but, the general plotline of what leads to the takeover of the galaxy by the Empire is definitely, it's interesting.

00:49:08.000 Now, he rips on the choreography of some of the fight scenes, and here he's just, I'm sorry, like, no, he's just wrong on this.

00:49:16.000 This movie doesn't have good action scenes.

00:49:18.000 The action scenes are long and busy and lots of things happen in them, but they are not good.

00:49:23.000 I mean, the fight choreography is terrible.

00:49:26.000 It's clumsy and nonsensical and uninspired.

00:49:29.000 Many of the Jedi's who are supposed to be intergalactic ninjas, like the Karate Kids of the Cosmos or whatever, have shockingly bad reflexes.

00:49:37.000 I mean, Revenge of the Sith features some of the slowest fight scenes I've ever seen.

00:49:43.000 There's a scene where Emperor Ovaltine, or whatever his name is, who I guess is not an Emperor yet in this, but he fights off a group of Jedi's who came to...

00:49:52.000 Apprehend him.

00:49:53.000 And the actor who played Ovaltine was in his mid-60s, and he moves like it.

00:49:58.000 And yet, despite swinging the lightsaber with all the speed and vigor of a retiree playing softball, he still easily dispatches multiple Jedi warriors who are supposed to be the greatest warriors in the universe. 0.64

00:50:11.000 And just with a casual flick of the lightsaber, they're dead.

00:50:17.000 That's it.

00:50:18.000 And the fight scenes are also funny because they use stunt doubles or CGI to have the Jedi's do flips and random like mid-air 360 corkscrews like Simone Biles for no obvious strategic reason.

00:50:29.000 But for the rest of the time, they have the actual actors, I guess, doing the moves.

00:50:32.000 So we're treated to the spectacle of fighters who can jump and flip like Olympic gymnasts.

00:50:38.000 But when they're not jumping, they move like these clumsy old dudes. 0.99

00:50:43.000 Oh, come on. 0.87

00:50:44.000 I mean, seriously, come on.

00:50:46.000 There's never been stunt doubles ever in the history of movies, Matt.

00:50:50.000 Really?

00:50:52.000 The last fight scene between Obi-Wan and Anakin is a good fight scene.

00:50:55.000 Some of the stuff involving Count Dooku is pretty good.

00:50:59.000 This is not the movie that has the worst fight scenes.

00:51:02.000 And by the way, the movie that actually has maybe the best Star Wars duel is the original Phantom Menace.

00:51:08.000 The original Phantom Menace, it turns out that the Darth Maul...

00:51:13.000 Is actually the best of the various fighters.

00:51:15.000 Okay, finally, we have Matt on the storyline here.

00:51:18.000 Again, he's not totally off base here, guys.

00:51:20.000 But it's the entire gestalt of the movie.

00:51:22.000 Am I saying Revenge of the Sith is like the best movie?

00:51:25.000 I'm not saying it's the best movie ever made.

00:51:26.000 But this, I could do what Matt is doing with virtually any movie.

00:51:30.000 Not virtually.

00:51:31.000 With many movies that are considered classics, you could definitely rip them apart along many of the same lines.

00:51:36.000 Here is Matt.

00:51:38.000 Can we possibly say that although the acting is bad, the dialogue's bad, the action's bad, at least the story was good?

00:51:43.000 Well, no, we can't.

00:51:43.000 Because, unfortunately, this ship hit multiple massive narrative icebergs so that by the end of the thing, the end of the thing was so riddled with holes that it could just barely stay afloat.

00:51:55.000 So let me give you just two examples, both from the end of the movie.

00:51:59.000 In the climactic battle sequence between Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi...

00:52:04.000 Which takes place on a lava planet for some reason.

00:52:06.000 I don't remember why they went to a lava planet.

00:52:11.000 Maybe there was a good reason.

00:52:12.000 Okay, why would anyone go to a lava planet if there are thousands of planets and you can go to any of them faster than the speed of light?

00:52:20.000 Why would you ever choose the lava planet for any activity?

00:52:25.000 What possible activity could you...

00:52:27.000 Why would you ever go to it?

00:52:28.000 Why would anything ever happen on...

00:52:30.000 Is it because Anakin was evil?

00:52:32.000 So when you turn evil, you suddenly develop an affinity for lava?

00:52:36.000 Yeah, that is it.

00:52:37.000 That's George Lucas' writing for you.

00:52:39.000 Well, he's evil, so he must like lava.

00:52:42.000 Anyway, so they were on the lava planet fighting, and they were leaping from one piece of floating debris to the next, because that's how it works, right?

00:52:48.000 Never mind the fact that if you jumped onto a piece of metal that was floating in lava, you would quickly burn to death.

00:52:53.000 But that's not the point.

00:52:53.000 The point is that this scene ends with Obi-Wan Kenobi jumping off of one of the lava rafts and onto a gently sloping hill.

00:52:59.000 And he turns back to Anakin, who's still floating on the lava, and says, It's over.

00:53:03.000 I have the higher ground.

00:53:04.000 The fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi is slightly elevated over Anakin is supposed to somehow mean that he automatically wins the fight?

00:53:11.000 Except that Anakin, just five seconds earlier, had leapt like 30 feet in the air with effortless ease.

00:53:17.000 So even if the higher ground is decisive, he could easily just jump higher than Obi-Wan Kenobi was standing.

00:53:23.000 I mean, that last point about the higher ground is true.

00:53:26.000 As far as why they're on Mustafar, the answer is the Sephiroth's leaders were in Mustafar and they were in this crappy planet as a hiding place.

00:53:33.000 That's the actual reason why they end up on Mustafar.

00:53:35.000 And also, yeah, because Anakin turns evil and lava's cool.

00:53:38.000 I mean, is it okay just for lava to be cool?

00:53:40.000 Can that be okay once in a while?

00:53:42.000 And Matt is so cynical about things that he turns me into the optimist.

00:53:47.000 Pretty impressive stuff.

00:53:49.000 Alrighty, guys.

00:53:50.000 Coming up, Ilhan Omar has a bit of a tête-à-tête with a reporter.

00:53:55.000 Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

00:53:57.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

00:53:58.000 Use code SHAPIRO at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - May 02, 2025

SHAKE-UP At The White House

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript