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.
00:00:47.000If 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.
00:00:57.000From rebuilding the United States military to Doge, all of it goes out the window if the economy falls.
00:01:02.000Because the way the American people think about politics is quite simple when it comes to presidents and the economy.
00:01:07.000If the economy is good, the president gets the credit.
00:01:10.000If the economy is bad, the president gets the blame.
00:01:14.000Well, yesterday, the GDP report came in, and it showed negative GDP growth.
00:01:19.000Two consecutive cores of negative GDP growth is typically termed a recession in sort of technical terms.
00:01:24.000Now, obviously, Americans are feeling very skittish about the economy in general right now.
00:01:29.000And feelings, unfortunately, don't care about your facts when it comes to the economy very often.
00:01:33.000Sometimes people feel worse about the economy than it actually is.
00:01:36.000Sometimes they feel better about the economy than it actually is.
00:01:38.000But all of those feelings tend to make themselves actually heard in the economic statistics eventually because people are buying and selling.
00:01:46.000Doing all of these things based on what they feel their own personal financial status is.
00:01:50.000According 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.
00:02:00.000The Commerce Department said U.S. GDP fell at a seasonally and inflation adjusted 0.3% annualized rate in the first quarter.
00:02:07.000That was the first contraction since the first quarter of 2022.
00:02:23.000It turns out everyone has been on the edge of their seats.
00:02:26.000It's a roller coaster, this tariff war, at best.
00:02:29.000Investors have pulled their money out.
00:02:31.000If, in fact, they are spending, they are attempting to beat the tariffs to the table.
00:02:35.000They're essentially buying things, stocking up on imports before the tariffs hit.
00:02:39.000Net exports, the difference between what the United States imports and exports, subtracted nearly five percentage points from headline GDP.
00:02:46.000This was the biggest quarterly drag from net exports on record, dating back to 1947.
00:02:52.000So basically, imports actually radically increased because everybody was trying to get in under the wire before all the tariffs kicked in.
00:03:00.000Imports subtract from the Commerce Department's calculation of GDP because they represent the spending on foreign-made goods and services.
00:03:40.000According 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.
00:03:50.000The 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.
00:04:00.000So as recession fears rise, investors are actually moving away from the dollar.
00:04:05.000There's just less need for it if the feeling is that trade is going to decline.
00:04:09.000Why exactly would you invest in American dollars if you can't use those American dollars to buy American goods?
00:04:14.000Or if American companies are going to be hurt by their lack of export markets?
00:04:18.000So we're talking about the value of the American dollar and what actually has happened under President Trump.
00:04:23.000De-dollarization is a really dangerous thing.
00:04:25.000To articulate that, I asked our friend sponsors over at Perplexity, what would the impact be on American economics of de-dollarization?
00:04:33.000And 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.
00:04:42.000And the key economic impacts include higher borrowing costs and reduced financial flexibility, depreciation of the dollar, and inflationary pressures.
00:04:50.000U.S. financial assets like equities and bonds could underperform relative to global markets.
00:04:55.000As international investors reallocate away from dollar-denominated assets.
00:04:58.000If they're not using dollars, there's no reason for them to buy American products, for example, or American financial assets.
00:05:04.000A loss of geopolitical and economic leverage.
00:05:06.000Remember, President Trump likes using sanctions.
00:05:08.000Well, sanctions are only effective if you have something to actually take away from the bad guys.
00:05:14.000And there would be uncertain effects on economic growth.
00:05:17.000That effect of U.S. economic growth is ambiguous.
00:05:19.000A weaker dollar could enhance export competitiveness, make it easier for us to quote-unquote cheaply produce goods.
00:05:24.000But those benefits might be offset by reduced foreign investment.
00:05:28.000So, again, all this is not a particularly great indicator.
00:05:30.000Now, President Trump continues to tout his tariff war in Michigan.
00:06:33.000Because they're afraid of taking off President Trump, presumably.
00:06:36.000President Trump has already blown holes in his tariffs by announcing that there would be some exceptions for American car companies.
00:06:43.000GM said in January it expected net profits in the range of $11.2 billion to $12.5 billion for full year 2025.
00:06:50.000And pre-tax profits of $13.7 billion to $15.7 billion.
00:06:54.000But they're now revising all of those statistics significantly down based on the tariff war.
00:07:00.000So President Trump has been trying to adjust to that by essentially cutting holes in his own tariff regime.
00:07:05.000Meanwhile, 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.
00:07:18.000They 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.
00:07:30.000What's even more damaging is some of the rhetoric that is now surrounding this stuff.
00:07:33.000So President Trump put out a post yesterday in which he claimed that this is Joe Biden's stock market, not his own stock market.
00:07:42.000This brings a strong contrast to 2024.
00:07:45.000When 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.
00:07:50.000Now he's been president for four months and he is claiming that it is not his stock market.
00:07:57.000That is a dog that is not going to hunt just in terms of PR.
00:07:59.000Quote, this is Biden's stock market, not Trump's.
00:08:01.000I didn't take over until January 20th.
00:08:03.000Tariffs will soon start kicking in and our companies are starting to move into the U.S. in record numbers.
00:09:20.000That is a let-them-eat-cake approach to politics.
00:09:23.000It would be bad if a Democrat said it.
00:09:25.000It would be bad if a Republican said it.
00:09:27.000The 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.
00:09:42.000That is a tremendous commercial for Democrats.
00:09:46.000President Trump should be avoiding language like that, obviously.
00:09:49.000We'll get to more on that in just a moment.
00:09:51.000First, PureTalk, the cell phone company I use for business every day, is helping you save money on your cell phone bill.
00:10:42.000For Americans, go check them out right now.
00:10:44.000PureTalk at puretalk.com slash Shapiro.
00:10:47.000And again, get that year of Daily Wire Plus for free with qualifying plan.
00:10:50.000Also, 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.
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00:11:34.000The pursuit to serve others, that's yours.
00:11:50.000President Trump, meanwhile, continues to bang on Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve Chairman.
00:11:55.000He told his supporters in Michigan on Tuesday, quote, I have a Fed person who is not really doing a good job.
00:11:59.000I want to be very nice and respectful to the Fed.
00:12:02.000So continuing to rip on the Fed, he's apparently not going to fire Jerome Powell, which would be a mistake to fire Jerome Powell.
00:12:10.000But he's going to continue to rip on Jerome Powell.
00:12:12.000What are the markets supposed to take away from that?
00:12:15.000Well, 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.
00:12:21.000If he is still hoping that Jerome Powell is going to save him.
00:12:27.000That suggests that he's going to continue with the very measures that have gotten him into this situation in the first place.
00:12:34.000And all of this has serious political ramifications.
00:12:37.000Not 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.
00:12:54.000And if Republicans lose the House, the investigations are coming.
00:12:57.000This is a point that Speaker Mike Johnson was making yesterday.
00:13:00.000He said, listen, if we lose the House of Representatives, they will impeach Donald Trump day one.
00:13:05.000The economy goes south, environment's bad, and you happen to lose the House.
00:13:10.000How quickly do Democrats impeach Donald Trump?
00:14:15.000White 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.
00:14:24.000But 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.
00:14:33.000They're preliminary outlines of what their governments are willing to discuss in trade talks.
00:14:38.000Some 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.
00:14:45.000One industry official said they're hesitant to negotiate against themselves.
00:14:48.000If 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.
00:15:04.000China is experiencing an economic slowdown, as you would imagine.
00:15:08.000It turns out that cutting the Chinese off from the American markets, they do have an impact on China as well.
00:15:13.000And that would be a purely good thing if we actually had plans in place to contain the effect of that.
00:15:21.000So 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.
00:15:30.000shows 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.
00:15:40.000Now, 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.
00:15:48.000That is despite the fact that it really is hurting China.
00:15:52.000If China felt that it was hurting China badly enough, this tariff war, China does have a get-out-of-jail-free card.
00:15:58.000And that get-out-of-jail-free card is a blockade of Taiwan.
00:16:01.000If 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.
00:16:14.000And most of the secondary semiconductors are made in China.
00:16:18.000This is why it is not enough to have a good policy direction.
00:16:21.000You have to have a meticulous implementation of that policy.
00:16:35.000So the Democrats continue to futz around in search of a leader.
00:16:39.000It is funny to watch them kind of flail around like a fish out of water.
00:16:44.000James 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.
00:16:54.000So, 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.
00:17:08.000Well, now he's the vice chair, and he's been saying he wants to primary a bunch of moderate Democrats in purple districts.
00:17:13.000And James Carville had criticized him.
00:17:15.000Well, now he's backing off, quote, just called David Hogg.
00:17:19.000He reminded me of the story of after the Battle of Shiloh, Henry Halleck urged President Lincoln to fire Ulysses Grant.
00:18:17.000The answer, of course, is no one has missed Kamala.
00:18:20.000We 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.
00:19:55.000Remember, they trotted him out as a possibility for 2028 after his awful run for vice president.
00:20:00.000Well, yesterday, he was talking about why he was nominated for vice president by Kamala Harris at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics.
00:20:11.000I would argue because we did a lot of amazing progressive things in Minnesota to improve people's lives.
00:20:16.000But 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.
00:20:26.000I was the permission structure to say, look, you can do this and vote for this.
00:20:31.000Well, I guess the code talking didn't work.
00:20:34.000By the way, first hint that a candidate for the Democratic Party is not going to be able to talk to the bros.
00:20:43.000Okay, so who else are the possibilities?
00:20:45.000Well, Democrats are positing that maybe Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan would be a possibility, the governor of Michigan.
00:20:52.000And she has been making some interesting moves.
00:20:55.000She'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.
00:21:02.000Here she was appearing with President Trump and they hugged.
00:21:06.000Well, 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.
00:21:22.000It's crucial for the Michigan economy.
00:21:24.000It's crucial for the men and women here, for our homeland security and our future.
00:21:37.000And so the fact that she is now essentially appearing repeatedly with President Trump, that's a smart move because it makes her appear moderate.
00:21:48.000Whitmer versus AOC is very likely to be the 2028 face down for the Democratic Party.
00:21:53.000So 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.
00:22:17.000And 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.
00:22:26.000And that's really what my central focus is.
00:22:32.000So that is going to be the battle inside the Democratic Party.
00:22:35.000Again, the Democratic Party is not in a strong position.
00:22:37.000All 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.
00:22:47.000We'll get to more on this in a moment.
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00:24:38.000And meanwhile, some good news out of Ukraine.
00:24:41.000So Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, he announced yesterday that there would be a Ukraine minerals deal.
00:24:46.000You remember, this was supposed to be what was going to happen when Vladimir Zelensky visited the United States back in February.
00:24:52.000And there was that pretty awful showdown between Zelensky and President Trump and the Vice President J.D. Vance.
00:24:56.000He was supposed to sign some sort of rare earth minerals deal.
00:24:59.000And 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.
00:25:08.000Well, Secretary Besant made that absolutely clear yesterday in announcing the deal.
00:25:14.000Thanks 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.
00:25:32.000This 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.
00:25:50.000The Development Finance Corporation will participate and help to establish this fund in collaboration with the government of Ukraine.
00:25:58.000Today'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.
00:26:13.000Okay, 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.
00:26:21.000Okay, if that's true, which I assume that it is.
00:26:23.000That will have to mean additional military support to Ukraine if Putin does not come to the table.
00:26:28.000Now, the goal, of course, is to get Putin to the table and then the Europeans can sort of take over.
00:26:31.000But in the meantime, you can't let Ukraine collapse or the rare earth minerals deal means pretty much nothing.
00:26:36.000So that is a welcome shift from the Trump administration and a good thing for Ukraine to have signed.
00:26:41.000Meanwhile, and the media continue to beclown themselves in a wide variety of ways.
00:26:45.000So the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia continues to be a major talking point for Democrats.
00:26:56.000We 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.
00:27:03.000And she said that she even had a recording where he said even if he killed her, quote, nobody can do anything to him.
00:27:10.000So 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.
00:27:18.000While 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.
00:27:27.000Now, 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.
00:27:38.000Those tattoos were a variety of symbols.
00:27:41.000Those symbols were interpreted by sources, judges, everybody else in the Trump administration as MS-13 associated symbols.
00:27:52.000And so somebody basically took that fist and put above the knuckles MS-13 on the knuckles.
00:27:59.000And President Trump points out that these are MS-13 tattoos.
00:28:02.000Terry Moran seems to think that President Trump thinks that the letters MS and the numbers 1-3 are actually printed on the knuckles.
00:28:09.000And that's not what President Trump is saying.
00:28:10.000So they get into a weird fight over it.
00:28:13.000But even the man that you picked out, he said he wasn't a member of a gang.
00:28:18.000And then they looked, and on his knuckles, he had MS-13.
00:29:44.000Okay, so, again, it seems to me that they're talking past one another.
00:29:47.000The 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.
00:29:55.000And he does not, in fact, have the numbers and letters MS-13 on his knuckles.
00:30:00.000He has a bunch of other really ugly tattoos that are probably associated with MS-13 on his knuckles.
00:30:04.000The point is, defending the guy himself as though he is some sort of great shakes is a huge Democratic mistake.
00:30:11.000What 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.
00:30:22.000Because 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.
00:31:14.000We have lawyers that don't want to do this.
00:31:17.000But the Bucks So, I mean, that is going to be a problem in court.
00:31:23.000Again, like the economy, even if you like some of the ideas, the implementation matters.
00:31:29.000I 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.
00:31:39.000Also, you should actually abide by due process.
00:31:41.000I don't know why that's really particularly controversial at this point in time.
00:34:16.000I've had this experience at UC Santa Barbara where there were 50 members of the Muslim Students Association sitting right in the rows there.
00:34:28.000And throughout my hour talk, I kept asking them, will you condemn Hezbollah and Hamas?
00:35:00.000The 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.
00:35:42.000I'm Jewish, and so I'm here for Yom Hatzmoud, which is Israeli Independence Day.
00:35:46.000I 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.
00:38:34.000And 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.
00:38:56.000So let's talk about that for a moment.
00:38:57.000Obviously, support for Israel has become significantly more fraught in the United States, particularly since October 7th.
00:39:03.000The left, obviously, has moved very strongly against Israel.
00:39:06.000There are breaks in the right with regard to support for Israel.
00:39:09.000The implication has been made that only Jews are interested in supporting Israel, obviously.
00:39:15.000But why should Americans, and particularly non-Jewish Americans, care about Israel?
00:39:19.000Well, 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.
00:39:32.000Israel 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.
00:39:46.000Both nations coming out of people who escaped religious tyranny, economic tyranny, and in the case of the Jews, an outright holocaust.
00:39:56.000The Jewish people have a connection to this land that goes back 3,500 years.
00:40:00.000It doesn't go back to 1917 and the Balfour Declaration.
00:40:03.000It doesn't go to 1948 and independence.
00:40:06.000When people start trying to make it of, oh, it's a century old.
00:40:09.000It's 3,500 years that the Jewish people have been in this land.
00:40:15.000And it goes back to Abraham, who, I say, wrote the title deed and said, this is yours.
00:40:22.000Now, here's where I can't escape the biblical part.
00:40:27.000You either believe the scripture or you don't.
00:40:30.000And 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.
00:40:39.000And it was not nebulous, and it was not ambiguous.
00:41:28.000We 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.
00:41:44.000No other nation quite fits that mold where the people elect their own government.
00:41:50.000They can speak out against their government.
00:41:52.000And 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.
00:42:00.000These people know how to fight politically.
00:42:02.000And they do it almost like a blood sport.
00:42:09.000It's what it looks like when people have freedom.
00:42:11.000They can scream at their government officials, and they do.
00:42:14.000They can write nasty things about their government officials, and they do.
00:42:18.000That's something that we share in America, that we have that level of liberty.
00:42:22.000And it is something that a lot of Americans take for granted.
00:42:25.000But 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.
00:42:38.000So 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.
00:42:46.000The most out-of-the-box one is President Trump's proposal with regard to the Gaza Strip, which I love.
00:42:52.000I 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,
00:43:39.000They 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.
00:45:36.000Meanwhile, one of the other issues that the Trump administration is taking on is the Iranian nuclear program.
00:45:40.000This, 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.
00:45:49.000President Trump famously called President Obama's deal on this the worst deal in history.
00:45:53.000He called it that repeatedly, the JCPOA.
00:45:56.000There's a lot of negotiations that are currently happening between the Special Envoy Steve Whitcoff and members of the Iranian government.
00:46:01.000Some of these negotiations have been happening in Qatar.
00:46:03.000Apparently there's now European involvement in these negotiations.
00:46:06.000There'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.
00:46:19.000What should the United States' end goal be in the negotiations so as to not essentially duplicate the Obama deal?
00:46:27.000The president's words are far more important than mine for a host of reasons.
00:46:40.000The president has made it very clear that his message to the Iranians is, you're not going to have a nuclear program.
00:46:45.000You're not going to be able to have the capacity for a nuclear weapon.
00:46:52.000If 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.
00:47:05.000You can't have it where they're still within a few weeks of being able to weaponize nuclear material.
00:47:13.000So 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.
00:47:24.000We'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.
00:47:44.000The 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.
00:47:57.000They've been very explicit that Israel is the appetizer, but we're the entree.
00:48:02.000And when Americans act like, well, it doesn't have anything to do with us, how naive are you?
00:48:07.000Do you not remember 1979 when they took American hostages from the U.S. Embassy?
00:48:12.000Do you not remember that for 46 years they have continually vowed, not just said, Someday we might get interested in...
00:48:23.000No, they have vowed annihilate Israel and then come after the United States.
00:48:28.000So 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.
00:48:37.000And 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?
00:49:10.000And I thought that that was as clear a statement that anyone could make and that it came directly from the president.
00:49:19.000I 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.
00:49:38.000So one of the other issues that obviously comes up a lot...
00:49:45.000I say so-called West Bank because that is a new name for an area that is extremely old.
00:49:51.000It's the West Bank of the Jordan River, but it was Judea and Samaria for several thousand years.
00:49:55.000So Judea and Samaria, obviously there are multiple million Palestinian Arabs who live in these areas.
00:50:01.000There are also hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in these areas.
00:50:04.000A 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.
00:50:14.000The death knell of Oslo means a Palestinian state is not in the cards in the so-called West Bank.
00:50:20.000What should the United States do regarding the sovereignty of Judea and Samaria?
00:50:25.000I believe what the president did in his first term is sort of a clear indicator.
00:50:30.000The first thing he did, he made it very clear that it's not illegal.
00:50:34.000It's not a violation of international law for Israelis to live in Israel.
00:52:17.000There 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.
00:53:07.000And I found that the Palestinians working there were ecstatic.
00:53:10.000They had four times the wage they'd ever earned ever in their lives.
00:53:14.000They had paid benefits like health insurance and paid vacation and educational benefits for their children and even meals provided while they were at work.
00:53:23.000It was something like they'd never seen before.
00:53:26.000And then the brilliant BDS movement raised its ugly head and went after SodaStream.
00:53:34.000And 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.
00:53:49.000And 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.
00:54:01.000And it's that kind of thing that the world never understands and doesn't see.
00:54:05.000Israelis are constantly just vilified.
00:54:11.000It's like they're trying to make life miserable.
00:54:14.000Every 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,
00:54:35.000we'll reward you with a lifetime pension.
00:54:38.000And if you die from it, your family will get a pension.
00:54:41.000We'll name a street or a park after you.
00:54:44.000And 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.
00:55:20.000What 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.
00:55:32.000There is no similar sign for Arabs who drive into, from these areas, Israel.
00:55:36.000If you get past a roadblock and you go into Israel, you have a normal day and then you go back home.
00:55:41.000And so maybe you can talk a little bit about how Bethlehem has changed in the 50 years you've been visiting it.
00:55:45.000When I first came here, Bethlehem was a wonderful, hospitable community.
00:55:49.000It was made up of about 80% of Arab Christians.
00:55:52.000They 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.
00:56:09.000And it was just a delightful place to go.
00:56:12.000In 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.
00:56:28.000Closed down their shops, put them out of business.
00:56:42.000And it's not the kind of place that you will feel as comfortable as once was.
00:56:46.000I'm not saying that everybody there is a radical because that's not true.
00:56:49.000There are Christians there that love God.
00:56:52.000There are a lot of people that are not radicalized.
00:56:56.000But the leadership and the prevailing culture is dramatically different than it once was.
00:57:04.000You mentioned Oslo, and I'll give you a good example of why Americans don't get it.
00:57:10.000Under Oslo, everybody was supposed to have their holy sites protected, preserved, and accessible, no matter whether they were Jew, Christian, Muslim.
00:57:21.000The Israelis, this is what most people have no idea, they are as protective of Muslim worship sites as they are Jewish worship sites.
00:57:31.000If 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.
00:59:28.000Well, while Israel is celebrating Yom HaTzmud, there are wildfires all around Jerusalem.
00:59:32.000I know because I'm in Jerusalem and basically everything was shut down last night because of these wildfires.
00:59:38.000I can see the smoke from the wildfires.
00:59:40.000I actually saw many of those fires even a few days ago when we were driving into Jerusalem.
00:59:45.000Israeli 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.
00:59:56.000The night of Israeli Independence Day required all the firefighters in the country to be activated.
01:00:01.000I mean, these are huge wildfires burning all around Jerusalem.
01:00:05.000Obviously, people who love the land so much that they are literally willing to set it on fire.
01:00:09.000So, you know, those are the enemies that Israel faces even on its Independence Day.
01:00:14.000All 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.