The Ben Shapiro Show - May 01, 2025


The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration

Topics
economic growth and dollar value Ukraine minerals deal Kilmar Diego Garcia tattoos dispute Iranian nuclear program
Hosted by
Ben Shapiro
Mentioned
Donald Trump Sam Harris David Horowitz Terry Moran Jerome Powell Joe Biden Kilmar Abrego Garcia Mike Huckabee David Hogg Yom Hatzmoud James Carville Scott Besson Obama Vladimir Zelensky Charlie Kirk Photoshopped Abraham Joseph Putin Judea and 19 more
The Secret SUCCESS of DOGE SHAKE-UP At The White House

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour

Words per minute

182.63

Word count

11,031

Sentence count

892

Harmful content

Misogyny

10

sentences flagged

Toxicity

38

sentences flagged

Hate speech

35

sentences flagged


Summary

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

The biggest danger to the Trump administration and their agenda is very clearly an economic downturn. By far, it's not particularly close. The economy, in the absence of the trade war, remains fairly robust at this point. Deregulation and tax cuts, without the Trade War, and you'd have a booming economy right now. Which is why I've been saying this for months: if there were a downturn under President Trump, the rest of the agenda items that he is pursuing, everything from illegal immigration to wiping DEI out of the federal government, from rebuilding the U.S. military to wiping out the Federal Reserve, goes out the window if the economy falls.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Well, folks, as always, tons of news.
00:00:02.000 A fire hose of news.
00:00:04.000 But you need a reliable source for your news.
00:00:06.000 You need a conservative source for your news. 0.99
00:00:08.000 The legacy media, they think that you are too dumb to see through their lies. 0.99
00:00:11.000 They like to twist the narrative or manipulate the headlines or bury the truth. 0.99
00:00:14.000 We don't do that at The Daily Wire.
00:00:15.000 We are going to bring you the facts with no filter or no spin.
00:00:18.000 And then you get to get in on the conversation.
00:00:20.000 Join the live chat during our daily shows.
00:00:22.000 100% uncensored, ad-free, packed with fans who actually think for themselves.
00:00:26.000 Get the news the way it should be.
00:00:27.000 Honest, fearless, without an agenda.
00:00:29.000 Your voice matters.
00:00:30.000 Be a part of it.
00:00:30.000 Join now at dailywire.com slash subscribe.
00:00:33.000 All right, so yesterday, the U.S. economic report came in.
00:00:36.000 Q1, GDP is down.
00:00:38.000 The biggest danger to the Trump administration and their agenda is very clearly an economic downturn.
00:00:43.000 By far, it's not particularly close.
00:00:45.000 I've been saying this now for months.
00:00:47.000 If there were to be an economic downturn under President Trump, the rest of the very important agenda items that he is pursuing, everything from illegal immigration to wiping DEI out of the federal government, everything.
00:00:57.000 From rebuilding the United States military to Doge, all of it goes out the window if the economy falls.
00:01:02.000 Because the way the American people think about politics is quite simple when it comes to presidents and the economy.
00:01:07.000 If the economy is good, the president gets the credit.
00:01:10.000 If the economy is bad, the president gets the blame.
00:01:12.000 It is really that simple.
00:01:14.000 Well, yesterday, the GDP report came in, and it showed negative GDP growth.
00:01:19.000 Two consecutive cores of negative GDP growth is typically termed a recession in sort of technical terms.
00:01:24.000 Now, obviously, Americans are feeling very skittish about the economy in general right now.
00:01:29.000 And feelings, unfortunately, don't care about your facts when it comes to the economy very often.
00:01:33.000 Sometimes people feel worse about the economy than it actually is.
00:01:36.000 Sometimes they feel better about the economy than it actually is.
00:01:38.000 But all of those feelings tend to make themselves actually heard in the economic statistics eventually because people are buying and selling.
00:01:46.000 Doing all of these things based on what they feel their own personal financial status is.
00:01:50.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. economy contracted in the first three months of 2025 as businesses rushed to stock up on imports ahead of the Trump administration's tariffs and consumer spending slowed.
00:02:00.000 The Commerce Department said U.S. GDP fell at a seasonally and inflation adjusted 0.3% annualized rate in the first quarter.
00:02:07.000 That was the first contraction since the first quarter of 2022.
00:02:10.000 Consumer spending...
00:02:11.000 Did increase at 1.8%.
00:02:13.000 That is the smallest increase since mid-2023.
00:02:16.000 Spending by the federal government fell, but the main driver of the first quarter contraction was, wait for it, the tariff war.
00:02:22.000 Of course, of course.
00:02:23.000 It turns out everyone has been on the edge of their seats.
00:02:26.000 It's a roller coaster, this tariff war, at best.
00:02:29.000 Investors have pulled their money out.
00:02:31.000 If, in fact, they are spending, they are attempting to beat the tariffs to the table.
00:02:35.000 They're essentially buying things, stocking up on imports before the tariffs hit.
00:02:39.000 Net exports, the difference between what the United States imports and exports, subtracted nearly five percentage points from headline GDP.
00:02:46.000 This was the biggest quarterly drag from net exports on record, dating back to 1947.
00:02:52.000 So basically, imports actually radically increased because everybody was trying to get in under the wire before all the tariffs kicked in.
00:03:00.000 Imports subtract from the Commerce Department's calculation of GDP because they represent the spending on foreign-made goods and services.
00:03:08.000 Does this mean the economy is weak?
00:03:10.000 It doesn't.
00:03:10.000 The economy is not, in fact, weak.
00:03:12.000 The economy, in the absence of the trade war, remains fairly robust at this point.
00:03:17.000 Not like 5% GDP robust, but ready to grow.
00:03:21.000 Deregulation and tax cuts.
00:03:22.000 Without the trade war, and you'd have a booming economy right now, which is why I've been saying, Peter Navarro needs to be fired.
00:03:27.000 Just let Scott Besant run this ship.
00:03:30.000 That's all.
00:03:30.000 Just let it happen.
00:03:32.000 Because of lack of faith in the American economy, de-dollarization continues.
00:03:36.000 This is...
00:03:40.000 According to Axios, the U.S. dollar index in Trump's first 100 days fell 9.5% compared to a 2.1% drop in the first 100 days of his term.
00:03:50.000 The value of the greenback increased by 4.5% in George W. Bush's first 100 days when the country was headed into recession and rose slightly for both Obama and Biden.
00:04:00.000 So as recession fears rise, investors are actually moving away from the dollar.
00:04:05.000 There's just less need for it if the feeling is that trade is going to decline.
00:04:09.000 Why exactly would you invest in American dollars if you can't use those American dollars to buy American goods?
00:04:14.000 Or if American companies are going to be hurt by their lack of export markets?
00:04:18.000 So we're talking about the value of the American dollar and what actually has happened under President Trump.
00:04:23.000 De-dollarization is a really dangerous thing.
00:04:25.000 To articulate that, I asked our friend sponsors over at Perplexity, what would the impact be on American economics of de-dollarization?
00:04:33.000 And perplexity says de-dollarization refers to the process by which countries reduce their reliance on the U.S. dollar for international trade, financial transactions, and as a reserve currency.
00:04:42.000 And the key economic impacts include higher borrowing costs and reduced financial flexibility, depreciation of the dollar, and inflationary pressures.
00:04:50.000 U.S. financial assets like equities and bonds could underperform relative to global markets.
00:04:55.000 As international investors reallocate away from dollar-denominated assets.
00:04:58.000 If they're not using dollars, there's no reason for them to buy American products, for example, or American financial assets.
00:05:04.000 A loss of geopolitical and economic leverage.
00:05:06.000 Remember, President Trump likes using sanctions.
00:05:08.000 Well, sanctions are only effective if you have something to actually take away from the bad guys.
00:05:14.000 And there would be uncertain effects on economic growth.
00:05:17.000 That effect of U.S. economic growth is ambiguous.
00:05:19.000 A weaker dollar could enhance export competitiveness, make it easier for us to quote-unquote cheaply produce goods.
00:05:24.000 But those benefits might be offset by reduced foreign investment.
00:05:28.000 So, again, all this is not a particularly great indicator.
00:05:30.000 Now, President Trump continues to tout his tariff war in Michigan.
00:05:33.000 He did that the other night.
00:05:34.000 Here he was.
00:05:36.000 But I'm thrilled to be back in this beautiful state.
00:05:39.000 I love this state.
00:05:41.000 Got a lot of auto jobs coming.
00:05:43.000 Watch what's happening.
00:05:45.000 The companies are coming in by the tens.
00:05:49.000 You got to see what's happening.
00:05:51.000 They all want to come back to Michigan and build cars again.
00:05:54.000 You know why?
00:05:55.000 Because of our tax and tariff policy.
00:05:58.000 Okay, well, that's not exactly right.
00:06:01.000 The reason that's not exactly right is because GM reported its actual financials yesterday.
00:06:07.000 Apparently, GM has now reduced its profits 6.6% in Q1, and they adjusted their 2025 outlook as well.
00:06:16.000 Their prior full-year guidance had suggested pretty significant growth.
00:06:19.000 Now they say...
00:06:21.000 That while U.S. sales rose, they are having a significant problem with the tariff war.
00:06:27.000 In fact, the chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, told reporters on a call, GM will not comment on the cost incurred from tariffs.
00:06:33.000 Why?
00:06:33.000 Because they're afraid of taking off President Trump, presumably.
00:06:36.000 President Trump has already blown holes in his tariffs by announcing that there would be some exceptions for American car companies.
00:06:43.000 GM said in January it expected net profits in the range of $11.2 billion to $12.5 billion for full year 2025.
00:06:50.000 And pre-tax profits of $13.7 billion to $15.7 billion.
00:06:54.000 But they're now revising all of those statistics significantly down based on the tariff war.
00:07:00.000 So President Trump has been trying to adjust to that by essentially cutting holes in his own tariff regime.
00:07:05.000 Meanwhile, Black& Decker, again, this is an industrial company, Black& Decker is raising prices this year and retooling their entire supply chain in an attempt to blunt the impact of the global trade war, according to executives on Wednesday to the Wall Street Journal.
00:07:18.000 They say, That President Trump's tariff war is expected to dent their full-year earnings per share by about 75 cents as it takes action to mitigate new costs.
00:07:28.000 So this stuff is damaging.
00:07:30.000 What's even more damaging is some of the rhetoric that is now surrounding this stuff.
00:07:33.000 So President Trump put out a post yesterday in which he claimed that this is Joe Biden's stock market, not his own stock market.
00:07:42.000 This brings a strong contrast to 2024.
00:07:45.000 When the stock market started to increase, he said it was his stock market because the markets were expecting him to be president of the United States.
00:07:50.000 Now he's been president for four months and he is claiming that it is not his stock market.
00:07:57.000 That is a dog that is not going to hunt just in terms of PR.
00:07:59.000 Quote, this is Biden's stock market, not Trump's.
00:08:01.000 I didn't take over until January 20th.
00:08:03.000 Tariffs will soon start kicking in and our companies are starting to move into the U.S. in record numbers.
00:08:07.000 Our country will boom.
00:08:08.000 But we have to get rid of the Biden overhang.
00:08:10.000 This will take a while.
00:08:11.000 It has nothing to do with tariffs.
00:08:12.000 Only that he left us with bad numbers.
00:08:14.000 When the boom begins, it will be like no other.
00:08:16.000 Be patient.
00:08:17.000 Okay, well, markets yesterday upon this news were not particularly patient.
00:08:22.000 They have not dropped precipitously, again, because of the hope that President Trump is going to, in the end, back off of this tariff war.
00:08:28.000 But I will say that, politically speaking, President Trump is not setting himself up for success when he says what he said yesterday.
00:08:36.000 So yesterday, President Trump, Suggested that this is not a big deal.
00:08:41.000 That if there are problems with these supply chains and things just don't arrive on the shelves, you know, no biggie.
00:08:48.000 They made a trillion dollars with Biden, a trillion dollars, even a trillion one with Biden selling us stuff.
00:08:57.000 Much of a way to a need.
00:08:58.000 You know, somebody said, oh, the shelves are going to be open.
00:09:00.000 Well, maybe the children will have two dollars instead of 30 dollars.
00:09:09.000 Okay, that is not a dog that is going to hunt in any sort of future election for Republicans.
00:09:15.000 Maybe they won't have $30, their kids.
00:09:17.000 Maybe they will have two, and maybe they'll cost more.
00:09:19.000 No biggie.
00:09:20.000 That is a let-them-eat-cake approach to politics.
00:09:23.000 It would be bad if a Democrat said it.
00:09:25.000 It would be bad if a Republican said it.
00:09:27.000 The reality is that when Americans feel that their choices in the market are constrained, When they have to pay more for their kids' toys, when they are told it is not a big deal if their kid has to have fewer toys because of inflation, they are not going to feel the same way that President Trump just articulated.
00:09:42.000 That is a tremendous commercial for Democrats.
00:09:46.000 President Trump should be avoiding language like that, obviously.
00:09:49.000 We'll get to more on that in just a moment.
00:09:51.000 First, PureTalk, the cell phone company I use for business every day, is helping you save money on your cell phone bill.
00:09:56.000 That's right.
00:09:57.000 PureTalk says, I don't think so.
00:09:58.000 It's $100 a month cell phone plans.
00:10:00.000 That's just wasteful and irresponsible.
00:10:02.000 They're offering America's most dependable 5G network at America's most sensible prices.
00:10:06.000 Listen to this.
00:10:06.000 Unlimited talk taxed 15 gigs of data plus mobile hotspot for just $35 a month.
00:10:11.000 The best part?
00:10:11.000 Right now, you'll get a free one-year membership to Daily Wire+.
00:10:14.000 Access the entire library of Daily Wire +, movies and documentaries.
00:10:17.000 Enjoy uncensored ad-free daily shows.
00:10:19.000 Child my producers during our live stream.
00:10:21.000 And as always, your free leftist tiers Tumblr.
00:10:23.000 And with PureTalk's U.S. customer service team, you can switch hassle-free in as little as 10 minutes.
00:10:28.000 You don't need Doge to cut the fat from your wireless bill.
00:10:30.000 What you need is my friends over at PureTalk.
00:10:32.000 Go to puretalk.com slash Shapiro.
00:10:34.000 Switch to PureTalk at puretalk.com slash Shapiro.
00:10:37.000 Get a year of Daily Wire Plus for free with a qualifying plan.
00:10:40.000 PureTalk is wireless by Americans.
00:10:42.000 For Americans, go check them out right now. 0.99
00:10:44.000 PureTalk at puretalk.com slash Shapiro.
00:10:47.000 And again, get that year of Daily Wire Plus for free with qualifying plan.
00:10:50.000 Also, Grand Canyon University is a private Christian university in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona, and they believe that we're endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, you know, the American things.
00:11:00.000 GCU believes in equal opportunity and that the American dream starts with purpose.
00:11:04.000 Thank you.
00:11:21.000 Online, on-campus, and hybrid learning environments are designed to help you achieve your unique academic, personal, and professional goals.
00:11:27.000 With over 340 academic programs as of September 2024, GCU meets you where you are and provides a path to help you fulfill your dreams.
00:11:34.000 The pursuit to serve others, that's yours.
00:11:36.000 Let it flourish.
00:11:36.000 Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University.
00:11:39.000 Private, Christian, affordable visit.
00:11:40.000 That's gcu.edu.
00:11:42.000 Again, that's gcu.edu.
00:11:44.000 Go check them out today. 0.98
00:11:45.000 Don't go to some university that's going to indoctrinate you in trash.
00:11:48.000 Instead, head on over to gcu.edu. 0.88
00:11:50.000 President Trump, meanwhile, continues to bang on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve Chairman.
00:11:55.000 He told his supporters in Michigan on Tuesday, quote, I have a Fed person who is not really doing a good job.
00:11:59.000 I want to be very nice and respectful to the Fed.
00:12:02.000 So continuing to rip on the Fed, he's apparently not going to fire Jerome Powell, which would be a mistake to fire Jerome Powell.
00:12:10.000 But he's going to continue to rip on Jerome Powell.
00:12:12.000 What are the markets supposed to take away from that? 0.62
00:12:15.000 Well, you know, as somebody who invests, I will say that my takeaway is that doesn't seem like he's going to swerve away from his tariff agenda anytime soon.
00:12:21.000 If he is still hoping that Jerome Powell is going to save him.
00:12:27.000 That suggests that he's going to continue with the very measures that have gotten him into this situation in the first place.
00:12:34.000 And all of this has serious political ramifications.
00:12:36.000 It's not just fun and games.
00:12:37.000 Not only because it affects the American people, their pocketbooks, their kitchen table, but also because if the economy does continue to experience an economic downturn, if Americans continue to be very unhappy with the trajectory of the economy by every pull they are, Republicans will lose the House.
00:12:54.000 And if Republicans lose the House, the investigations are coming.
00:12:57.000 This is a point that Speaker Mike Johnson was making yesterday.
00:13:00.000 He said, listen, if we lose the House of Representatives, they will impeach Donald Trump day one.
00:13:05.000 The economy goes south, environment's bad, and you happen to lose the House.
00:13:10.000 How quickly do Democrats impeach Donald Trump?
00:13:14.000 Oh, I'm sure on day one.
00:13:15.000 I mean, you know, they've already filed articles and they're talking about it as recently as this week.
00:13:20.000 Is that part of your argument to voters, that Trump's impeachment is on the ballot in the midterm elections?
00:13:26.000 Yeah, of course.
00:13:27.000 I mean, it's a reality, and it's madness.
00:13:30.000 You know, we've already seen the movie.
00:13:32.000 They tried it twice already, based on absolutely nothing.
00:13:35.000 So, President Trump and team should keep that in mind.
00:13:38.000 If Republicans lose the House, the last two years of the Trump administration are basically done.
00:13:43.000 Nothing gets done, and everybody sort of knows this at this point.
00:13:47.000 So, how does President Trump?
00:13:49.000 Turn this thing around.
00:13:50.000 The answer is actually quite simple.
00:13:52.000 End the trade war.
00:13:54.000 Recalibrate.
00:13:54.000 Make a better policy toward China that actually does start boxing them in.
00:13:57.000 Do all the things we've been talking about on the show for weeks now.
00:14:01.000 Deregulate and cut taxes.
00:14:02.000 Those are the things.
00:14:03.000 It's not hard.
00:14:04.000 Many of those things are things the Trump administration is already doing.
00:14:07.000 But the markets keep kind of hoping against hope that a bunch of trade deals are coming.
00:14:11.000 And that is not an evidence at this point.
00:14:13.000 According to Politico.
00:14:15.000 White House officials have boasted that more than a dozen countries have put offers on the table to avoid the biting tariffs scheduled to kick in in just over two months, a sign President Trump's risky trade gambit is paying off.
00:14:24.000 But the documents other countries have submitted to the White House are far from final offers, according to a dozen foreign diplomats and three officials, granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive conversations.
00:14:33.000 They're preliminary outlines of what their governments are willing to discuss in trade talks.
00:14:38.000 Some trade partners are balking at proposing even an outline of their terms before they get some more guidance from the United States on what President Trump even wants from the talks.
00:14:45.000 One industry official said they're hesitant to negotiate against themselves.
00:14:48.000 If countries are setting the parameters for what the negotiations are and not the administration with concrete asks, it's a little bit like they're setting themselves up.
00:14:56.000 So what is coming down the line?
00:14:58.000 Are these trade deals coming down the line?
00:15:00.000 Because the tariffs are beginning to bite.
00:15:02.000 Now there's another danger too.
00:15:04.000 China is experiencing an economic slowdown, as you would imagine.
00:15:08.000 It turns out that cutting the Chinese off from the American markets, they do have an impact on China as well. 0.70
00:15:13.000 And that would be a purely good thing if we actually had plans in place to contain the effect of that.
00:15:21.000 So China's economy, according to the journal, showed its first big signs of damage from the trade war as steep U.S. tariffs pummeled export orders and production at the country's factories.
00:15:29.000 The sharp pullback.
00:15:30.000 shows that President Trump's eye-watering tariffs on Chinese imports are starting to squeeze the engine room of China's economy, piling pressure on Beijing to boost its own stimulus efforts to shore up growth.
00:15:40.000 Now, China doesn't want to cut a deal with the United States because they feel this is actually hurting the United States and President Trump worse than it is hurting them.
00:15:48.000 That is despite the fact that it really is hurting China.
00:15:51.000 But here's part of the problem.
00:15:52.000 If China felt that it was hurting China badly enough, this tariff war, China does have a get-out-of-jail-free card.
00:15:58.000 And that get-out-of-jail-free card is a blockade of Taiwan.
00:16:01.000 If China really felt threatened enough that their economy was going to go under or the CCP was in real danger, they would simply put a blockade around Taiwan, possibly destroy TSMC, which is the manufacturer of the semiconductors that power the globe.
00:16:14.000 And most of the secondary semiconductors are made in China.
00:16:18.000 This is why it is not enough to have a good policy direction.
00:16:21.000 You have to have a meticulous implementation of that policy.
00:16:26.000 Now look. 0.85
00:16:27.000 The good news, as always, for the Trump administration is that its enemies are absolutely incompetent and quite terrible at this. 1.00
00:16:33.000 Truly garbage at this. 0.99
00:16:35.000 So the Democrats continue to futz around in search of a leader. 1.00
00:16:39.000 It is funny to watch them kind of flail around like a fish out of water.
00:16:44.000 James Carville, who was still sort of the voice of reason on the Democratic side for a while there, he's now caving to the Democratic National Committee.
00:16:54.000 So, David Hogg, the insipid and ridiculous vice chair of the DNC, he was made the vice chair after launching a failed pillow company, attending Harvard University with very, very low SAT scores because he had been a student at Parkland during the shooting.
00:17:08.000 Well, now he's the vice chair, and he's been saying he wants to primary a bunch of moderate Democrats in purple districts. 0.66
00:17:13.000 And James Carville had criticized him.
00:17:15.000 Well, now he's backing off, quote, just called David Hogg.
00:17:19.000 He reminded me of the story of after the Battle of Shiloh, Henry Halleck urged President Lincoln to fire Ulysses Grant.
00:17:23.000 Lincoln said, I can fire him.
00:17:24.000 This man fights.
00:17:25.000 David Hogg fights.
00:17:26.000 The DNC needs him.
00:17:28.000 Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. 0.88
00:17:30.000 So you're telling me that David Hogg, this ridiculous broomstick of a human, is Ulysses S. Grant to James Carville? 0.95
00:17:39.000 He doesn't believe that at all, but the Democrats are trying to hold together the crazy wing and the somewhat less crazy wing. 0.93
00:17:44.000 Well, speaking of the... 0.93
00:17:46.000 Crazy wing.
00:17:47.000 Kamala Harris made her grand reappearance yesterday. 0.99
00:17:49.000 Just what Democrats need in a moment where President Trump is actually creating a series of targets for them to hit.
00:17:54.000 They're trotting out the wildly unpopular Kamala Harris. 1.00
00:17:57.000 By the way, brand new poll out today.
00:17:58.000 I believe it's from Emerson showing if there was another national election held today between Harris and Trump, who would win?
00:18:04.000 The answer was Trump by one.
00:18:06.000 In any case, Kamala Harris is back out there.
00:18:10.000 Speaking in San Francisco at the annual gala for Emerge, a group that recruits and trains women to run for office.
00:18:16.000 Did you miss Kamala?
00:18:17.000 Did you miss her?
00:18:17.000 The answer, of course, is no one has missed Kamala.
00:18:20.000 We barely even recognize she existed while she was running for president, given the fact that she was essentially a random person who was thrust into the limelight because Joe Biden died in the middle of the campaign. 0.98
00:18:30.000 Well, anyway, here was Kamala Harris. 1.00
00:18:32.000 I know, I know you missed the winding sentences, the sentences that run like a free-ranging river over the rocks of volubility.
00:18:41.000 Here was Kamala Harris talking about the abandonment of American ideals. 0.97
00:18:45.000 Instead of an administration working to advance America's highest ideals, we are witnessing the wholesale abandonment of those ideals.
00:19:04.000 Wow.
00:19:05.000 It's that sort of articulate, meticulous speech.
00:19:11.000 That's why she's president of the United States today. 1.00
00:19:13.000 Here she was slamming the Trump administration.
00:19:17.000 It's an agenda, a narrow, self-serving vision of America, where they punish truth-tellers, favor loyalists,
00:19:35.000 cash in on their power, and leave everyone to fend for themselves.
00:19:44.000 All while abandoning allies and retreating from the world.
00:19:51.000 You guys are going to need someone better than that.
00:19:54.000 What about Tim Walz?
00:19:55.000 Remember, they trotted him out as a possibility for 2028 after his awful run for vice president.
00:20:00.000 Well, yesterday, he was talking about why he was nominated for vice president by Kamala Harris at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.
00:20:07.000 It didn't go great.
00:20:08.000 I knew I was on the ticket.
00:20:11.000 I would argue because we did a lot of amazing progressive things in Minnesota to improve people's lives.
00:20:16.000 But I also was on the ticket, quite honestly, you know, because I could code talk to white guys watching football fixing their truck doing that, that I could put them at ease.
00:20:26.000 I was the permission structure to say, look, you can do this and vote for this.
00:20:31.000 Well, I guess the code talking didn't work.
00:20:34.000 By the way, first hint that a candidate for the Democratic Party is not going to be able to talk to the bros.
00:20:39.000 He uses terms like code talk.
00:20:41.000 That would be the first indicator.
00:20:43.000 Okay, so who else are the possibilities?
00:20:45.000 Well, Democrats are positing that maybe Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan would be a possibility, the governor of Michigan.
00:20:52.000 And she has been making some interesting moves. 0.93
00:20:55.000 She's been appearing on stage with President Trump, trying to prop up his economic plans in the Midwest, particularly with regards to sort of factory jobs.
00:21:02.000 Here she was appearing with President Trump and they hugged.
00:21:06.000 Well, I hadn't planned to speak, but on behalf of all the military men and women who serve our country and serve so honorably on behalf of the state of Michigan, I am really damn happy we're here to celebrate this recapitalization at Selfridge.
00:21:22.000 It's crucial for the Michigan economy.
00:21:24.000 It's crucial for the men and women here, for our homeland security and our future.
00:21:28.000 So, thank you.
00:21:29.000 I am so, so grateful that this announcement was made today, and I appreciate all the work.
00:21:35.000 Thank you.
00:21:37.000 And so the fact that she is now essentially appearing repeatedly with President Trump, that's a smart move because it makes her appear moderate.
00:21:45.000 Or the alternative is AOC.
00:21:48.000 Whitmer versus AOC is very likely to be the 2028 face down for the Democratic Party.
00:21:53.000 So AOC continues to play coy about 2028, even as she runs around the country with Bernie Sanders abandoning her district and speaking in front of tens of thousands of cheering socialists.
00:22:01.000 Here she was yesterday. 0.99
00:22:03.000 Are you thinking about running for president?
00:22:06.000 Or send it?
00:22:06.000 Because of my Instagram post?
00:22:09.000 No, the video, the campaign style video.
00:22:12.000 It's got everybody talking.
00:22:13.000 I mean, listen, it's a video.
00:22:17.000 And frankly, I think what people should be most concerned about is the fact that Republicans are trying to cut Medicaid right now and people's health care is in danger.
00:22:26.000 And that's really what my central focus is.
00:22:29.000 That's an avoidance of the question.
00:22:31.000 That is not a no, you'll notice.
00:22:32.000 So that is going to be the battle inside the Democratic Party.
00:22:35.000 Again, the Democratic Party is not in a strong position.
00:22:37.000 All the polls show that the American people do not like them, which is why it is very, very important to take the football and run with it and not allow the economy to sink into recession.
00:22:47.000 We'll get to more on this in a moment.
00:22:48.000 First, there's something deeply satisfying about a good spring refresh.
00:22:51.000 And refreshing, you're betting, might be the most rewarding change of all.
00:22:54.000 Bull& Branch's signature sheets, crafted from the finest 100% organic cotton, offer a buttery soft, breathable foundation.
00:22:59.000 Pair them with Bull& Branch's airy blankets, duvets, and quilts for the perfect seasonal upgrade.
00:23:03.000 Bull& Branch's 100% organic cotton sheets were pivotal in my sleep quality from the very first night.
00:23:07.000 I could feel the difference.
00:23:08.000 These aren't just any sheets.
00:23:09.000 They really do have this incredible softness that puts you in instant relaxation mode.
00:23:13.000 What really impressed me is how they get softer with every single wash.
00:23:16.000 I didn't think that was possible, but after a few months, it felt even more luxurious than when I first got them.
00:23:20.000 Believe me, I've tried other premium sheets before.
00:23:22.000 Nothing comes close to the breathable comfort of bowl and branch.
00:23:25.000 That's why we got rid of all of our other sheets in the Shapiro household. 1.00
00:23:27.000 The best part, they have designs and colors for every mattress size and bedroom style, so you can find the perfect fit this season.
00:23:32.000 And for those of you who always sleep hot at night, like me, they have their percale hem sheets, specially made with a cool and crisp weave, so you'll never toss and turn over heat again.
00:23:39.000 That's what we all need as we head into the summer months.
00:23:41.000 Feel the difference an extraordinary night's sleep can make with Bull& Branch.
00:23:44.000 Get 15% off plus free shipping on your first set of sheets at bullandbranch.com slash ben.
00:23:49.000 That's bullandbranch, B-O-L-L-A-N-D, branch.com slash ben to save 15%.
00:23:54.000 Exclusions apply.
00:23:55.000 See site for details.
00:23:57.000 Also, Made in America means something to our country's private equity investors.
00:24:01.000 When you invest $700 billion annually in American companies and the 13 million workers and families they support, you are investing in the success of Main Street.
00:24:08.000 Over the last eight years alone, America's private equity investors have contributed $5 trillion to the U.S. economy.
00:24:14.000 That is money powering growth in manufacturing, tech, energy, and innovation.
00:24:17.000 From strengthening supply chains to helping America lead in artificial intelligence, that kind of investment shapes our future.
00:24:22.000 And it starts with private equity backing American ambition.
00:24:25.000 Because investing in our people, our businesses, and our communities isn't just good for the economy, it's good for the country.
00:24:30.000 Learn more about how private equity keeps American small businesses growing and thriving at investmentcouncil.org.
00:24:36.000 Paid for by the American Investment Council.
00:24:38.000 And meanwhile, some good news out of Ukraine.
00:24:41.000 So Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, he announced yesterday that there would be a Ukraine minerals deal.
00:24:46.000 You remember, this was supposed to be what was going to happen when Vladimir Zelensky visited the United States back in February.
00:24:52.000 And there was that pretty awful showdown between Zelensky and President Trump and the Vice President J.D. Vance.
00:24:56.000 He was supposed to sign some sort of rare earth minerals deal.
00:24:59.000 And the sort of tacit promise of that deal was basically that if there was an economic relationship that was valuable to the United States and Ukraine, obviously the United States would have a stake.
00:25:08.000 Well, Secretary Besant made that absolutely clear yesterday in announcing the deal.
00:25:13.000 Here he was.
00:25:14.000 Thanks to President Trump's tireless efforts to secure a lasting peace, I am glad to announce the signing of today's historic economic partnership agreement between the United States and Ukraine, establishing the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund.
00:25:32.000 This partnership allows the United States to invest alongside Ukraine to unlock Ukraine's growth assets, mobilize American talent, capital, and governance standards that will improve Ukraine's investment climate and accelerate Ukraine's economic recovery.
00:25:50.000 The Development Finance Corporation will participate and help to establish this fund in collaboration with the government of Ukraine.
00:25:58.000 Today's agreement signals clearly to Russian leadership that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term.
00:26:13.000 Okay, so that is the important part is what he says there is that this is a sign that the United States would like Ukraine to retain its independence.
00:26:21.000 Okay, if that's true, which I assume that it is.
00:26:23.000 That will have to mean additional military support to Ukraine if Putin does not come to the table.
00:26:28.000 Now, the goal, of course, is to get Putin to the table and then the Europeans can sort of take over. 0.85
00:26:31.000 But in the meantime, you can't let Ukraine collapse or the rare earth minerals deal means pretty much nothing.
00:26:36.000 So that is a welcome shift from the Trump administration and a good thing for Ukraine to have signed.
00:26:41.000 Meanwhile, and the media continue to beclown themselves in a wide variety of ways.
00:26:45.000 So the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia continues to be a major talking point for Democrats.
00:26:53.000 He's a bad guy, Gilmar Abrego Garcia.
00:26:56.000 We now have reports of a second protective order that his wife filed against him in 2020, in which she accused him of physical abuse, threatening her.
00:27:03.000 And she said that she even had a recording where he said even if he killed her, quote, nobody can do anything to him.
00:27:10.000 So it sounds like just a fabulous person, just a really, really good, solid American, you know, a father, a Maryland father, as the media would put it.
00:27:18.000 While President Trump was interviewed about this particular topic, and he points out, He pointed out to ABC's Terry Moran that he had MS-13 tattoos.
00:27:27.000 Now, the reason this has become a hot story today is because there was, in fact, a graphic that was put out by members of the Trump administration that showed that he had a series of tattoos on his knuckles.
00:27:38.000 Those tattoos were a variety of symbols.
00:27:41.000 Those symbols were interpreted by sources, judges, everybody else in the Trump administration as MS-13 associated symbols.
00:27:52.000 And so somebody basically took that fist and put above the knuckles MS-13 on the knuckles.
00:27:59.000 And President Trump points out that these are MS-13 tattoos.
00:28:02.000 Terry Moran seems to think that President Trump thinks that the letters MS and the numbers 1-3 are actually printed on the knuckles.
00:28:09.000 And that's not what President Trump is saying.
00:28:10.000 So they get into a weird fight over it.
00:28:13.000 But even the man that you picked out, he said he wasn't a member of a gang.
00:28:18.000 And then they looked, and on his knuckles, he had MS-13.
00:28:22.000 There's a dispute about that.
00:28:23.000 Wait a minute.
00:28:24.000 Wait a minute.
00:28:25.000 He had MS-13 on his knuckles tattoo.
00:28:27.000 He had some tattoos that are interpreted that way.
00:28:29.000 But let's move on.
00:28:30.000 Wait a minute.
00:28:31.000 Hey, Terry, Terry.
00:28:32.000 He did not have the letter MS-13.
00:28:35.000 It says MS-13.
00:28:36.000 That was Photoshopped.
00:28:38.000 That was Photoshopped.
00:28:40.000 Terry, you can't do that.
00:28:41.000 Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime.
00:28:43.000 You know, you're doing the interview.
00:28:44.000 I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you, but that's okay.
00:28:48.000 I picked you, Terry.
00:28:50.000 But you're not being very nice.
00:28:51.000 He had MS-13 tattooed.
00:28:53.000 We'll agree to disagree.
00:28:54.000 Let's move on to something else.
00:28:56.000 Do you want me to show you the picture?
00:28:58.000 I saw the picture.
00:28:59.000 Here we go.
00:29:02.000 Here we go.
00:29:02.000 Don't Photoshop it.
00:29:03.000 Go look at his hand.
00:29:04.000 He did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way.
00:29:06.000 I'm not an expert on them.
00:29:07.000 I want to turn to Ukraine. 0.97
00:29:09.000 I want to get to Ukraine.
00:29:12.000 He had MS, as clear as you can be, not interpreted.
00:29:16.000 This is why people no longer believe the news, because it's fake news.
00:29:20.000 When he was photographed in El Salvador, they aren't there.
00:29:23.000 But let's just go on.
00:29:24.000 They aren't there when he's in El Salvador.
00:29:26.000 Oh, they weren't there, but they're there now, right?
00:29:28.000 No.
00:29:29.000 They're in your picture.
00:29:30.000 Terry.
00:29:30.000 Ukraine, sir.
00:29:31.000 He's got MS-13 on his knuckles.
00:29:34.000 All right.
00:29:35.000 Okay?
00:29:35.000 We'll take a look at that.
00:29:36.000 It's such a disservice.
00:29:38.000 We'll take a look at that, sir.
00:29:38.000 Why don't you just say, yes, he does.
00:29:41.000 You know, go on to something else.
00:29:42.000 It's contested.
00:29:44.000 Okay, so, again, it seems to me that they're talking past one another.
00:29:47.000 The media's interpreting that as Trump's saying over and over that the actual letters MS-13 are tattooed on his knuckles, regardless of whether that is true or not.
00:29:55.000 And he does not, in fact, have the numbers and letters MS-13 on his knuckles.
00:30:00.000 He has a bunch of other really ugly tattoos that are probably associated with MS-13 on his knuckles.
00:30:04.000 The point is, defending the guy himself as though he is some sort of great shakes is a huge Democratic mistake.
00:30:11.000 What is also a mistake for President Trump on this is to admit in interviews that he could theoretically get Abrego Garcia back, but he won't. 0.60
00:30:22.000 Because again, there's court orders in place that suggest that he is supposed to use best efforts to work with the Salvadoran government to allow this truly trash human being to get to process. 1.00
00:30:32.000 You can believe both things. 0.98
00:30:33.000 You can believe that Kilmer Abrego Garcia appears to be an absolute trash human being, probably MS-13, and also that... 0.96
00:30:39.000 He should go through whatever due processes due. 0.93
00:30:41.000 And that doesn't mean a full trial.
00:30:42.000 It does mean that he should go through whatever minor processes due and then he gets expelled from the country again.
00:30:46.000 Here's President Trump.
00:30:47.000 This is not an innocent, wonderful gentleman from Maryland.
00:30:51.000 I'm not saying he's a good guy.
00:30:52.000 It's about the rule of law.
00:30:54.000 The order from the Supreme Court stands, sir.
00:30:56.000 He came into our country illegally. 0.99
00:30:57.000 You could get him back.
00:30:58.000 There's a phone on this desk.
00:31:00.000 I could.
00:31:00.000 You could pick it up and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, send him back.
00:31:06.000 Right now.
00:31:06.000 And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that.
00:31:09.000 But the court has ordered you to facilitate that.
00:31:12.000 I'm not the one making this decision.
00:31:14.000 We have lawyers that don't want to do this.
00:31:17.000 But the Bucks So, I mean, that is going to be a problem in court.
00:31:23.000 Again, like the economy, even if you like some of the ideas, the implementation matters.
00:31:29.000 I like the idea of deporting everybody who is like Gilmar Abrego Garcia, possible gang members, people with criminal records who beat their wives, like all those people, if they're not American citizens, should be pushed out of the country forthwith.
00:31:39.000 Also, you should actually abide by due process.
00:31:41.000 I don't know why that's really particularly controversial at this point in time.
00:31:46.000 Meanwhile, in some...
00:31:47.000 Pretty terrible news.
00:31:48.000 David Horowitz died at the age of 86. I knew David really, really well.
00:31:51.000 Obviously, I used to work at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
00:31:54.000 Truth Revolt, which was sort of a precursor to Daily Wire, began at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
00:31:58.000 But I knew David for more than a decade before that.
00:32:01.000 Truly a formative person in the modern conservative movement.
00:32:05.000 A person who spoke truth, no matter the cost.
00:32:07.000 David started off as a radical communist.
00:32:11.000 He wrote a book in 1998 titled Radical Son, A Generational Odyssey.
00:32:17.000 What he called a red diaper baby, that his parents were communists.
00:32:20.000 And he started off as a far leftist writing for Ramparts magazine.
00:32:24.000 He turned to the right when his friend was killed by the Black Panthers, allegedly.
00:32:31.000 And he moved to the right.
00:32:33.000 Basically, all of his old friends disowned him, decided that he was untouchable.
00:32:37.000 And David turned into one of the most effective conservative activists of his generation.
00:32:42.000 He used to call the David Horowitz Freedom Center a battle tank rather than a think tank.
00:32:46.000 Pretty much everybody who's anybody in modern conservatism had some initial connection with David Horowitz.
00:32:53.000 I remember I met Charlie Kirk, for example, at a David Horowitz Freedom Center event.
00:32:56.000 This was back when Charlie was maybe 18 or 19 years old and he was first getting started with TPUSA.
00:33:01.000 And that's true for a huge number of people who got their start in the conservative movement in the 90s and 2000s.
00:33:07.000 Dale will very much be missed.
00:33:09.000 You should read his books.
00:33:09.000 He's really an amazing writer, a terrific speaker, a strong voice.
00:33:15.000 There are many videos of him online that are totally worth watching.
00:33:18.000 Here is just one.
00:33:20.000 Will you condemn Hamas here and now? 0.71
00:33:24.000 I'm sorry, what?
00:33:25.000 Will you condemn Hamas?
00:33:27.000 Would I condemn Hamas? 0.90
00:33:29.000 As a terrorist argument, genocide, logon.
00:33:31.000 Are you asking me to put myself on a cross?
00:33:33.000 So you won't.
00:33:35.000 I actually have had this experience many times.
00:33:38.000 You didn't read the pamphlet, because the pamphlet is chapter and verse.
00:33:41.000 The main connection is that the MSA
00:33:45.000 It's part of the Muslim Brotherhood Network as revealed in the documents.
00:33:50.000 I don't think you understood what I meant by that.
00:33:53.000 I meant if I say something, I'm sure that I will be arrested for reasons of Homeland Security.
00:33:59.000 So if you could please just answer my question.
00:34:01.000 If you condemn Hamas, Homeland Security will arrest you.
00:34:04.000 If I support Hamas, because your question forces me to condemn Hamas.
00:34:08.000 If I support Hamas, I look really bad.
00:34:11.000 If you don't condemn Hamas, obviously you support it. 1.00
00:34:14.000 Case closed.
00:34:16.000 I've had this experience at UC Santa Barbara where there were 50 members of the Muslim Students Association sitting right in the rows there.
00:34:28.000 And throughout my hour talk, I kept asking them, will you condemn Hezbollah and Hamas?
00:34:36.000 And none of them would.
00:34:37.000 And then when the question period came, the president of the Muslim Students Association, He was the first person to ask questions.
00:34:45.000 And I said, you know, before you start, will you condemn Hezbollah?
00:34:51.000 And he said, well, that question is too complicated for a yes-no answer.
00:34:56.000 So I said, okay, I'll put it to you this way.
00:34:59.000 I'm a Jew.
00:35:00.000 The head of Hezbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn't have to hunt us down globally, for it or against it.
00:35:13.000 For it.
00:35:14.000 Thank you.
00:35:18.000 Thank you for coming and showing everybody what's here.
00:35:22.000 David was extremely clear in his approach to the world.
00:35:24.000 He understood the morality of many of our foreign adversaries.
00:35:28.000 He was an advocate for Americanism and American strength and security.
00:35:32.000 And he will very much be missed.
00:35:34.000 Okay, meanwhile, we are actually over in Jerusalem because no surprise, no secret.
00:35:38.000 I'm a big supporter of Israel, obviously.
00:35:41.000 I'm a Zionist.
00:35:42.000 I'm Jewish, and so I'm here for Yom Hatzmoud, which is Israeli Independence Day.
00:35:46.000 I was invited to light a torch, actually, to lead off Yom Hatzmoud, Israeli Independence Day, and I thought it was an amazing opportunity to sit down with the brand-new Trump administration ambassador to the state of Israel, Mike Huckabee.
00:35:57.000 We sat down yesterday.
00:35:58.000 It was a fantastic conversation.
00:36:00.000 Here's what it sounded like.
00:36:02.000 Ambassador Huckabee, thank you so much for offering us the use of this office that we could actually film this.
00:36:06.000 I didn't know you were going to tear it to pieces, but no, honestly, I'm thrilled you're here.
00:36:10.000 It's such a pleasure to have you.
00:36:12.000 At your embassy in Jerusalem, and it's a delight to welcome you here.
00:36:16.000 Thanks for having me.
00:36:17.000 So let's talk about your history with Israel, why you wanted to be ambassador to Israel in the first place.
00:36:23.000 I came here for the first time 52 years ago.
00:36:26.000 It was 1973, July.
00:36:28.000 I was 17 years old, a month away from my 18th birthday.
00:36:31.000 And the story is, I grew up, I mean, literally dirt poor.
00:36:37.000 A little kid from southwest Arkansas.
00:36:40.000 My soon-to-be roommate in college grew up rather wealthy, and he wanted to take a senior trip.
00:36:47.000 So he asked his dad, Dad, can I take a trip?
00:36:49.000 I want to go to the Middle East.
00:36:49.000 His dad said, Son, I'm not going to let you go over there by yourself.
00:36:52.000 But his dad liked me, and he said, If you'll take Mike Huckabee with you, I'll pay his way too.
00:36:58.000 That's how I got to come.
00:37:00.000 So we came to the Middle East.
00:37:02.000 We went to Jordan, to Syria.
00:37:03.000 We went to Lebanon.
00:37:04.000 We went to Cyprus and Greece.
00:37:06.000 We went to Turkey, and we came to Israel.
00:37:10.000 And there were beautiful things to see, fascinating things to see.
00:37:14.000 But then when I came to Israel, something connected.
00:37:18.000 I can't even describe it.
00:37:20.000 It wasn't the visual.
00:37:22.000 It wasn't that of the five senses.
00:37:23.000 It was deep within my soul.
00:37:25.000 And I've tried to explain it.
00:37:28.000 It's the only place on earth I've ever been where I felt at home and a place I'd never visited.
00:37:33.000 It was a magnetic, spiritual connection.
00:37:37.000 And I said, I've got to go back.
00:37:39.000 I started bringing groups here in 1981, and I've brought tens of thousands of Americans to come see Israel since that time.
00:37:47.000 Been to this land probably a hundred times.
00:37:50.000 I never asked the president to put me here.
00:37:54.000 You know, I didn't lobby for it.
00:37:55.000 There were people that he trusted who did encourage him to name me ambassador.
00:38:01.000 And it's the only job in the entire administration that I would have said yes to.
00:38:06.000 I didn't want to babysit some bloated bureaucracy in Washington.
00:38:10.000 I didn't want to be ambassador somewhere else.
00:38:12.000 But when he called, and you know the president very well, he doesn't ask you.
00:38:17.000 He doesn't say, I'd like for you to think about, would you consider?
00:38:21.000 He calls in his classic style and says, Mike, Donald Trump, you're going to Israel.
00:38:26.000 You're going to be the ambassador.
00:38:28.000 And that was it.
00:38:29.000 And so for me, it was an Isaiah moment right out of the Old Testament.
00:38:32.000 Here am I, Lord.
00:38:33.000 Send me.
00:38:34.000 And here am I. And I can't even begin to tell you how overwhelmed I am at the privilege of serving my president and, most importantly, my country in this position in one of the most difficult places on Earth, but also one of the most incredibly strategically valuable places on Earth for the United States and its people.
00:38:56.000 So let's talk about that for a moment.
00:38:57.000 Obviously, support for Israel has become significantly more fraught in the United States, particularly since October 7th.
00:39:03.000 The left, obviously, has moved very strongly against Israel.
00:39:06.000 There are breaks in the right with regard to support for Israel.
00:39:09.000 The implication has been made that only Jews are interested in supporting Israel, obviously.
00:39:13.000 You're not Jewish. 1.00
00:39:14.000 We're both American, obviously.
00:39:15.000 But why should Americans, and particularly non-Jewish Americans, care about Israel?
00:39:19.000 Well, if we divorce anything spiritual from it, Jewish, Christian, which obviously there is a deep spiritual connection that I have as a Christian that you have as a Jew, let's take that off the table. 0.78
00:39:30.000 Here's why it matters.
00:39:32.000 Israel is the only nation in the entire region, one of the few nations, if not the only real nation in the world, that totally mirrors the experience of the birth, formation, and the prosperity of the United States.
00:39:46.000 Both nations coming out of people who escaped religious tyranny, economic tyranny, and in the case of the Jews, an outright holocaust.
00:39:56.000 The Jewish people have a connection to this land that goes back 3,500 years.
00:40:00.000 It doesn't go back to 1917 and the Balfour Declaration.
00:40:03.000 It doesn't go to 1948 and independence.
00:40:06.000 When people start trying to make it of, oh, it's a century old.
00:40:09.000 No, no, no, no.
00:40:09.000 It's 3,500 years that the Jewish people have been in this land.
00:40:15.000 And it goes back to Abraham, who, I say, wrote the title deed and said, this is yours.
00:40:22.000 Now, here's where I can't escape the biblical part.
00:40:27.000 You either believe the scripture or you don't.
00:40:30.000 And if you do, then you have to accept that when God gave the land, he gave it to a people, and he gave it for a purpose, and he gave it as a place.
00:40:39.000 And it was not nebulous, and it was not ambiguous.
00:40:44.000 It was very specific.
00:40:46.000 So this little sliver of real estate that now is the most contested piece of property on earth has a history that goes back to a covenant.
00:40:57.000 That God made with the Jewish people. 1.00
00:41:00.000 And I'm a person of the book.
00:41:02.000 I still believe it.
00:41:03.000 But now let me go back and take those things off the table.
00:41:06.000 Let's just say there never was a history.
00:41:08.000 There wasn't 3,500 years ago.
00:41:10.000 Abraham doesn't matter.
00:41:11.000 Take that off.
00:41:12.000 No nation on earth so reflects our culture and our civilization, which is a Western civilization.
00:41:21.000 Based on a Judeo-Christian understanding of the power, the right, and the responsibility of the individual.
00:41:27.000 We're not collectivists.
00:41:28.000 We really believe in Western civilization, religious or not, that the individual matters and that our liberty is personal liberty, that our responsibilities to preserve and protect and pass it on are individual responsibilities.
00:41:44.000 No other nation quite fits that mold where the people elect their own government.
00:41:50.000 They can speak out against their government.
00:41:52.000 And I tell people in America all the time, if you think we have divided and contentious politics, you ain't seen nothing till you come here.
00:42:00.000 These people know how to fight politically.
00:42:02.000 And they do it almost like a blood sport.
00:42:07.000 But that's democracy in action.
00:42:09.000 It's what it looks like when people have freedom.
00:42:11.000 They can scream at their government officials, and they do.
00:42:14.000 They can write nasty things about their government officials, and they do.
00:42:18.000 That's something that we share in America, that we have that level of liberty.
00:42:22.000 And it is something that a lot of Americans take for granted.
00:42:25.000 But if they went to most places in the world, they would not have that level of freedom to express themselves, even that defies and challenges the government, as long as they do it without violence and without threat.
00:42:38.000 So there are a number of issues where the United States' policy in the Middle East affects Israel, and Israel's policy obviously affects the interests of the United States.
00:42:46.000 The most out-of-the-box one is President Trump's proposal with regard to the Gaza Strip, which I love.
00:42:52.000 I think that it's fascinating because I think that it's the first reflection of actual reality to maybe have entered the conversation in decades, the recognition that this strip of land which has been taken over by Hamas and whose people largely, unfortunately, support Hamas and support at least the destruction of the state of Israel,
00:43:10.000 that is an intransigent problem.
00:43:12.000 And President Trump has acknowledged that, and then he has suggested that basically there needs to be a transformation of the Gaza Strip.
00:43:17.000 What do you make of President Trump's proposal?
00:43:18.000 How practical is it?
00:43:19.000 How does it get done?
00:43:21.000 When President Trump sort of shocked the world and said, we'll just take over Gaza, we'll rebuild it.
00:43:27.000 You know, my first thought was that Gaza should have and could have been Singapore. 0.97
00:43:33.000 Instead, Hamas turned it into Haiti. 0.88
00:43:37.000 Actually, it makes Haiti look good. 1.00
00:43:39.000 They turned it into the hellhole they did because they were not interested in building schools and mosques and hospitals and things that really helped the people.
00:43:48.000 They can claim they had those things. 0.95
00:43:50.000 But where they put their resources were rockets, bombs, ammunition for one purpose, not to defend themselves, but to murder Jews. 0.95
00:44:03.000 Let's not mince that.
00:44:04.000 It wasn't because they thought Israel was going to come and invade them.
00:44:10.000 With their own military, forcibly moved 10,000 Jews out of Gaza.
00:44:16.000 Because Israel thought, if we give it up, you know, you have a Palestinian state over there, you have the whole thing.
00:44:22.000 And if one has ever seen the video from Gush Katif, you can't see that without weeping.
00:44:29.000 Because these are Jews that have been rescued from the Holocaust, moved out of their homes, and now at the gunpoint of their own military.
00:44:37.000 We're moved out of their homes in Gaza because Israel made what, you know, looking at it from a distance. 0.97
00:44:44.000 And I'm not saying this is ambassador.
00:44:46.000 I'm saying this is just a guy.
00:44:49.000 It was a horrific mistake.
00:44:51.000 But they thought it was a good idea because every one of the world tells them, if you just give up some land, you're going to have peace.
00:44:58.000 And here's what's happened.
00:44:59.000 Every time they have given up land, they don't have peace.
00:45:02.000 They just have less land.
00:45:04.000 That's all they get out of it.
00:45:05.000 And then they get more threats as people are closer to them who still have the stated intent to murder them.
00:45:12.000 And that's what Gaza was all about. 0.99
00:45:16.000 It was about murdering Jews. 1.00
00:45:17.000 It wasn't about building a better life for Palestinian families.
00:45:19.000 And that's the great tragedy of all of this, is that it could have and should have been avoided.
00:45:25.000 But Hamas, not a government.
00:45:27.000 It's not a standing army. 0.67
00:45:28.000 It's a terrorist organization.
00:45:31.000 And that's all they've ever been.
00:45:33.000 That's what they've acted like.
00:45:34.000 And we see the results of it.
00:45:36.000 Meanwhile, one of the other issues that the Trump administration is taking on is the Iranian nuclear program.
00:45:40.000 This, of course, has been a burgeoning threat against Israel and against the entire region, the Saudis, UAE, and all the various other countries of the region for a couple of decades at this point.
00:45:49.000 President Trump famously called President Obama's deal on this the worst deal in history.
00:45:53.000 He called it that repeatedly, the JCPOA.
00:45:56.000 There's a lot of negotiations that are currently happening between the Special Envoy Steve Whitcoff and members of the Iranian government.
00:46:01.000 Some of these negotiations have been happening in Qatar.
00:46:03.000 Apparently there's now European involvement in these negotiations.
00:46:06.000 There's been some sort of different messages coming out about what the goal of the negotiations is, whether it's total denuclearization of Iran, meaning no civilian nuclear program, no nothing, or whether there will be enrichment allowed to a particular level.
00:46:19.000 What should the United States' end goal be in the negotiations so as to not essentially duplicate the Obama deal?
00:46:27.000 The president's words are far more important than mine for a host of reasons.
00:46:31.000 Number one, he's the president.
00:46:32.000 He was the only one elected last November, and I was not.
00:46:34.000 And I'm his representative here.
00:46:37.000 So I carry his message, not mine.
00:46:40.000 The president has made it very clear that his message to the Iranians is, you're not going to have a nuclear program.
00:46:45.000 You're not going to be able to have the capacity for a nuclear weapon.
00:46:52.000 If there is any room for them to have some type of Energy production, then there's a lot of what they've done and are doing that have nothing to do with that.
00:47:03.000 That's got to be dismantled.
00:47:05.000 That can't stay.
00:47:05.000 You can't have it where they're still within a few weeks of being able to weaponize nuclear material.
00:47:13.000 So the president, I believe, is acting in good faith, trying to give, as John Lennon would so wonderfully say in the song, give peace a chance.
00:47:22.000 We'd all love to see that.
00:47:24.000 We'd love to see the Iranians come to their senses and say, you know what, we don't need a nuclear weapon, and we don't need enrichment, we don't need centrifuges, we don't need to get to 3.67 and beyond.
00:47:36.000 That's not really our goal.
00:47:38.000 If that happens, and there's an aversion of war, wonderful. 0.98
00:47:42.000 Everybody celebrates. 0.94
00:47:44.000 The reality is, for 46 years, the Iranians have said, Israel is the little Satan, the U.S. is the great Satan, We're going to destroy Israel and annihilate it, and then we're coming after the United States. 0.90
00:47:57.000 They've been very explicit that Israel is the appetizer, but we're the entree. 0.73
00:48:02.000 And when Americans act like, well, it doesn't have anything to do with us, how naive are you?
00:48:07.000 Do you not remember 1979 when they took American hostages from the U.S. Embassy?
00:48:12.000 Do you not remember that for 46 years they have continually vowed, not just said, Someday we might get interested in...
00:48:23.000 No, they have vowed annihilate Israel and then come after the United States. 0.99
00:48:28.000 So when someone's got a gun pointed at you, even if it's from a distance for that long a period of time, you're stupid not to pay attention to that. 0.98
00:48:37.000 And so that's why when the president the other day on Air Force One, when he was going to Rome on Air Force One for the Pope's funeral, and a reporter asked him, very leading question, Are you going to let Israel drag us into a war? 0.99
00:48:55.000 Classic President Trump.
00:48:56.000 He said, nobody's going to drag us into anything.
00:49:00.000 If the Iranians don't give up their nuclear ambitions for weapons, I'll lead the effort. 1.00
00:49:08.000 I won't be dragged into it.
00:49:10.000 And I thought that that was as clear a statement that anyone could make and that it came directly from the president.
00:49:19.000 I think was reassuring not only to the people of Israel, but reassuring to the people of the world that this is a regime that can't have that kind of capacity any more than you would give car keys to a Lamborghini and a bottle of whiskey to a 16-year-old boy.
00:49:38.000 So one of the other issues that obviously comes up a lot...
00:49:45.000 I say so-called West Bank because that is a new name for an area that is extremely old.
00:49:51.000 It's the West Bank of the Jordan River, but it was Judea and Samaria for several thousand years.
00:49:55.000 So Judea and Samaria, obviously there are multiple million Palestinian Arabs who live in these areas.
00:50:01.000 There are also hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in these areas.
00:50:04.000 A Palestinian state is off the table so far as the Israelis are concerned because after October 7th, which was effectively the death knell of Oslo, which, again, I believe is always a foolish move. 0.95
00:50:14.000 The death knell of Oslo means a Palestinian state is not in the cards in the so-called West Bank.
00:50:20.000 What should the United States do regarding the sovereignty of Judea and Samaria?
00:50:25.000 I believe what the president did in his first term is sort of a clear indicator.
00:50:30.000 The first thing he did, he made it very clear that it's not illegal.
00:50:34.000 It's not a violation of international law for Israelis to live in Israel.
00:50:40.000 That was pretty important.
00:50:42.000 Maybe it's not considered one of the bigger things that he did because people remember the embassy move.
00:50:48.000 They remember recognizing Jerusalem as the indivisible and indigenous and permanent capital of the Jewish people.
00:50:55.000 Recognize the Golan Heights, the sovereign territory.
00:50:58.000 He did a lot of things, more than any other president.
00:51:01.000 In fact, more than all the other presidents put together in one term.
00:51:04.000 So the indication is that...
00:51:09.000 What the timing looks like, how it all works out, it's really not the U.S.'s position.
00:51:15.000 We don't make that decision.
00:51:17.000 The Israelis do. 0.61
00:51:20.000 And I think it's a matter of seeing how does it unfold in a way that provides a potential prosperity for Palestinian people.
00:51:28.000 Here's what I don't think people understand.
00:51:31.000 There have been many efforts to bring economic prosperity to people.
00:51:36.000 In Judea and Samaria.
00:51:38.000 And by the way, I don't use the term West Bank.
00:51:42.000 And I just won't.
00:51:43.000 I know that that's the nomenclature of the day.
00:51:46.000 But I find it indescriptive for one thing.
00:51:50.000 And it is not the ancient and I would say not the biblical terms for it.
00:51:54.000 But even beyond that, it's not an accurate reflection of the land and its boundaries.
00:52:02.000 But the attempts, a great example, several years ago.
00:52:06.000 I was in Judea, and I visited the SodaStream plant that they had built.
00:52:09.000 1,100 workers.
00:52:11.000 700 were Palestinian.
00:52:12.000 400 were Israeli.
00:52:14.000 There were Jews, Muslims.
00:52:17.000 There were men and women, Palestinian, Israeli, all working side by side in a place that was extraordinary because in this facility, these people were not looking at each other like enemies.
00:52:34.000 They were neighbors.
00:52:35.000 And they work together.
00:52:37.000 Their families even socialize together because they found out that these people aren't horrible people.
00:52:42.000 Even though there were 700 Palestinians over only 400 Israelis, the Palestinians were getting the same wage the Israelis were.
00:52:49.000 They weren't paid a different wage.
00:52:51.000 This nonsense of apartheid and racism, I saw with my own eyes.
00:52:57.000 And by the way, I was given permission to go talk to anybody in the factory.
00:53:01.000 Nobody would monitor the conversation.
00:53:03.000 I could ask any questions I wanted.
00:53:05.000 And I did.
00:53:07.000 And I found that the Palestinians working there were ecstatic.
00:53:10.000 They had four times the wage they'd ever earned ever in their lives.
00:53:14.000 They had paid benefits like health insurance and paid vacation and educational benefits for their children and even meals provided while they were at work.
00:53:23.000 It was something like they'd never seen before.
00:53:26.000 And then the brilliant BDS movement raised its ugly head and went after SodaStream.
00:53:34.000 And the result of the pressure was that SodaStream had to close that plant, move it, I think, near Netanya, but in an undisputed area where even the UN can't say it's not Israel.
00:53:49.000 And the result was all those 700 Palestinians lost the best job they ever had and all the benefits and went back to live in poverty.
00:53:57.000 So who won that?
00:53:58.000 Who benefited from that?
00:54:00.000 Nobody.
00:54:01.000 And it's that kind of thing that the world never understands and doesn't see.
00:54:05.000 Israelis are constantly just vilified. 0.95
00:54:11.000 It's like they're trying to make life miserable. 0.98
00:54:14.000 Every Israeli I know, personally, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but every Israeli I know is not interested in violence, and they're not interested in making life miserable for Palestinians, but they've lost their patience with Palestinian Authority leadership that says that if you kill a Jew, 0.85
00:54:35.000 we'll reward you with a lifetime pension.
00:54:38.000 And if you die from it, your family will get a pension.
00:54:41.000 We'll name a street or a park after you.
00:54:43.000 That's pay for slay. 0.95
00:54:44.000 And when you create a culture that from the time a child is five, six years old, that says your greatest goal in life is to kill Jews, I'm sorry, but that's a culture that doesn't have the right to exist next to the very people that you've been told one day. 1.00
00:55:00.000 You'll grow up and kill them. 0.96
00:55:01.000 I think that's such an important point, especially because there's so many myths out there about places like, for example, Bethlehem. 0.99
00:55:07.000 You've been to Bethlehem.
00:55:08.000 I've never been to Bethlehem because if I were to drive into Bethlehem, I would almost certainly be murdered.
00:55:12.000 But Bethlehem itself...
00:55:13.000 I'm not standing next to you when you go, okay?
00:55:15.000 I'm just telling you that.
00:55:16.000 I'm not very popular there, but you...
00:55:18.000 You're going to be in trouble.
00:55:20.000 What people don't understand is, and if you've ever been here, obviously, you know that there are giant red signs outside of Bethlehem that basically say that if you are an Israeli citizen and you make a wrong turn here, the Israeli government cannot be held responsible for your safety.
00:55:32.000 There is no similar sign for Arabs who drive into, from these areas, Israel.
00:55:36.000 If you get past a roadblock and you go into Israel, you have a normal day and then you go back home. 0.95
00:55:41.000 And so maybe you can talk a little bit about how Bethlehem has changed in the 50 years you've been visiting it.
00:55:45.000 When I first came here, Bethlehem was a wonderful, hospitable community.
00:55:49.000 It was made up of about 80% of Arab Christians.
00:55:52.000 They ran the best stores and not just souvenir shops with trinkets, but with some of the finest artists that made everything from olive wood furniture, olive wood art pieces for one's home.
00:56:09.000 And it was just a delightful place to go.
00:56:12.000 In the 80s, and then especially in the 90s, when the Muslims came in and radicalized the population, they burned out their own Arab neighbors and really family members, if you will. 0.96
00:56:28.000 Closed down their shops, put them out of business.
00:56:30.000 Many of them came to Jerusalem.
00:56:32.000 Many of them just never had another place to be.
00:56:36.000 Turned Bethlehem into a very different place where now it's 80% Muslim. 1.00
00:56:41.000 And it's a very different place.
00:56:42.000 And it's not the kind of place that you will feel as comfortable as once was.
00:56:46.000 I'm not saying that everybody there is a radical because that's not true.
00:56:49.000 There are Christians there that love God.
00:56:52.000 There are a lot of people that are not radicalized.
00:56:56.000 But the leadership and the prevailing culture is dramatically different than it once was.
00:57:04.000 You mentioned Oslo, and I'll give you a good example of why Americans don't get it.
00:57:10.000 Under Oslo, everybody was supposed to have their holy sites protected, preserved, and accessible, no matter whether they were Jew, Christian, Muslim.
00:57:19.000 The Israelis have lived up to that. 0.94
00:57:21.000 The Israelis, this is what most people have no idea, they are as protective of Muslim worship sites as they are Jewish worship sites.
00:57:31.000 If you want to get in trouble with the Israeli government, Be a Jew or a Christian and try to violate the sovereignty of the Dome of the Rock, the Alaska Mosque. 0.98
00:57:42.000 You're going to get hurt. 0.97
00:57:43.000 And it won't be the Muslims doing it to you. 0.99
00:57:45.000 It's going to be the Israeli forces that will say, you can't do this up here because we're going to respect their right to be here.
00:57:53.000 I went to the tomb of Joseph, which is in Nablus.
00:57:56.000 It is in sort of forbidden territory for most Jews and Christians.
00:58:01.000 Supposed to be accessible.
00:58:03.000 After all, there's a holy place, certainly for Jews, but also for Christians.
00:58:09.000 And we had to go at 2 o 'clock in the morning.
00:58:11.000 There's only one trip a month that goes in.
00:58:13.000 A dozen people, limited, armored vehicles, military escort.
00:58:17.000 We got into Annapolis at 2 in the morning.
00:58:20.000 People burning tires in the street, throwing Molotov cocktails at our vehicle.
00:58:25.000 We only were allowed to be there to go and pray in the tomb of Joseph.
00:58:29.000 For like 30 minutes, and then we had to get out of there.
00:58:32.000 And it was a stark reminder.
00:58:34.000 This is how Jews, and in this case, Jews and Christians. 0.62
00:58:38.000 I was the only Christian.
00:58:39.000 Everybody else was Jewish. 0.90
00:58:41.000 This is how they accessed the worship sites.
00:58:45.000 But the next day, I could go to the Kotel, and I could look up and see Muslims who were going to their place to pray.
00:58:54.000 And the Israeli government was giving every protection.
00:58:58.000 To them in order to do that.
00:59:00.000 That's the dual sort of application of law that Israelis live with every single day.
00:59:06.000 And I would say that Christians live with every single day.
00:59:09.000 Well, the Trump administration, obviously, is a big advocate for President Trump's election for many reasons.
00:59:14.000 One of them is that he's the most pro-Israel president in the history of the United States.
00:59:17.000 By far, we're very grateful that you're the ambassador to Israel, doing an amazing job.
00:59:21.000 Thank you so much for taking the time.
00:59:23.000 Ben, it has been a real pleasure.
00:59:24.000 Welcome home to Yerushalayim. 0.97
00:59:28.000 Well, while Israel is celebrating Yom HaTzmud, there are wildfires all around Jerusalem.
00:59:32.000 I know because I'm in Jerusalem and basically everything was shut down last night because of these wildfires.
00:59:38.000 I can see the smoke from the wildfires.
00:59:40.000 I actually saw many of those fires even a few days ago when we were driving into Jerusalem.
00:59:45.000 Israeli Arabs or Palestinian Arabs are suspected of setting many of those fires because there were very, very high winds over the past couple of days in order to thwart Yom HaTzmud festivities.
00:59:54.000 Essentially, they were all shut down.
00:59:56.000 The night of Israeli Independence Day required all the firefighters in the country to be activated.
01:00:01.000 I mean, these are huge wildfires burning all around Jerusalem.
01:00:05.000 Obviously, people who love the land so much that they are literally willing to set it on fire.
01:00:09.000 So, you know, those are the enemies that Israel faces even on its Independence Day.
01:00:14.000 All right, you guys, coming up in the most bizarre judicial story of the day, a judge has now ordered the release of a suspect who attempted to firebomb a Tesla.