00:00:06.000Joe Kent, who honestly you probably hadn't heard of, but now you have, he is exiting MAGA, resigning from a counterterrorism post that you certainly have never heard of.
00:00:15.000And of course, our craven mainstream media are frothing at the mouth at the notion that MAGA could be fracturing all their juiciest, most lurid fantasies are coming true.
00:00:25.000But as it turns out, MAGA is doing just fine.
00:00:28.000We're just shedding some excess baggage here.
00:00:30.000Meanwhile, the end of the story in Iran is still in the making.
00:00:32.000I will lay out three paths to how the regime can fall once and for all.
00:00:36.000And in Cuba, decades of chaos, poverty, and corruption are finally coming to a head.
00:01:38.000So dead even split on if Trump decides to do that, only 36% of MAGA will openly oppose that.
00:01:45.000How about on whether to end the war quickly or stay until the objectives are achieved in Iran?
00:01:50.000Only 30% of MAGA supporters say that we should end the war as quickly as possible.
00:01:56.00058% say that we should keep fighting until all U.S. objectives have been achieved.
00:02:02.000So no, President Trump is not losing MAGA.
00:02:05.000And yet, according to those who have had their brains rotted out by X, and of course, our usual duds in the mainstream media, the base is totally fractured.
00:02:13.000And they know this because they have found some new heroes, heretic MAGA, who are targeting the administration for destruction.
00:02:21.000So yesterday, this lit up the interwebs and also cable news.
00:02:24.000Joe Kent is a former failed congressional candidate from Washington State.
00:02:28.000He was elevated to the position of director of the National Center for Counterterrorism, which you really had never heard of, by President Trump.
00:02:37.000Kent is a former Green Beret and served in the CIA as well.
00:02:40.000Now, Kent has a long political history.
00:02:42.000In 2020, he voted for Bernie Sanders, but back in 2022, Kent ran for Congress and he ran into a bit of trouble because of his AIDS associations with white supremacists.
00:02:52.000According to Nick Fuentes, Kent sought his support, but then was forced to disavail him when that support became public.
00:02:58.000Kent has been for a very long time conspiratorially minded in the extreme.
00:03:03.000He suggested that the Secret Service might have been in on the assassination attempt on President Trump in July 2024, among other bizarre theories.
00:03:10.000He's also been strangely supportive of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's aggression against Ukraine.
00:03:14.000Before that, though, Kent had some bizarrely heterodox views.
00:03:19.000In 2020, after President Trump knocked off Iranian terror master Qassem Soleimani, Kent explained, quote, we remain in striking distance by choice for no clear benefit.
00:03:28.000We should crush their ballistic and nuke capes and get out of Iraq with sanctions to follow.
00:03:32.000Interesting, because that's kind of what President Trump has been doing.
00:03:35.000Well, way back when Kent was actually nominated to serve in the federal government, MSNBC was highly critical.
00:03:43.000That man you heard speaking is a Trump-endorsed Republican who believes the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and he hired a member of the Proud Boys as a campaign consultant.
00:03:54.000He once told a white nationalist youth group, quote, I don't think there's anything wrong with there being a white people's special interest group.
00:04:02.000Then, yesterday, Kent released a bizarre and paranoid letter announcing his resignation from that National Center for Counterterrorism.
00:04:08.000In the letter, Kent announced that, quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
00:04:18.000You know, you know who he's talking about, don't you?
00:04:22.000He then stated that Trump had been duped by, quote, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media who deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America-first platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.
00:04:36.000And then, just in case he wasn't done blaming the Israelis and, you know, all of the terrible people in America, he blamed the Iraq war on the Israelis too.
00:04:45.000And then he wasn't done even then, actually.
00:04:47.000He declared that his wife, who was killed by ISIS in Syria in 2019, was murdered, quote, in a war manufactured by Israel.
00:04:54.000So to get this straight, according to Joe Kent, who again was a Trump appointee in charge of the National Center for Counterterrorism, President Trump is a dupe of the Israelis and unspecified media members, who knows.
00:05:07.000The Iraq war was the fault of the Israelis, even though it was opposed at the time by the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
00:05:14.000And also, the Israelis are at fault for his wife being murdered by ISIS in Syria somehow.
00:05:21.000This is, to put it kind of mildly, nutty.
00:05:24.000President Trump himself dismissed the notion he's been manipulated by the nefarious Yudin yesterday.
00:05:32.000I was against Iran long before I even thought about Israel being against Iran.
00:05:37.000I was, if you look back many years ago, I talked about Iran was a big threat to this country, to this world of ours.
00:05:48.000Now, Kent's take is kind of unsurprising, to be honest.
00:05:51.000His wife works for far-left propagandist Max Blumenthal, who has worked for a wide variety of foreign propaganda outlets.
00:05:58.000And all of this calls into question why Kent was selected for his job in the first place.
00:06:02.000Obviously, Kent and his Ron Paul-esque foreign policy preferences have some allies in the administration.
00:06:07.000According to Fox, Kent was, quote, a known leaker, and he was cut out of the president's intelligence briefings months ago.
00:06:13.000The White House told DNI Tulsi Gabbard he should be fired for suspected leagues, but she never did.
00:06:18.000He has not been part of any Iran planning discussions or briefings at all.
00:06:22.000Now, our own Mary Margaret Olihan reports that it's true that Kent was kept out of all briefings on the war, but an intelligence official tells her that Gabbard would have fired Kent if she had been asked to do so.
00:06:33.000The White House did confirm this morning that Kent had literally nothing to do with any Iran war considerations before the war or during the war.
00:06:39.000Here is Caroline Levitt on Fox this morning.
00:06:42.000It's been a while since the president has seen him here at the White House.
00:06:45.000It's been a while since he's been involved in the process of the presidential daily briefs, and he's been actually present for the president's intelligence briefings.
00:06:53.000This was an individual who was not involved in any of the discussions pre-operation and throughout this operation.
00:07:00.000I think the president views it as deeply unfortunate that this individual who the president gave the privilege of working for the administration put out this resignation on government letterhead with many falsehoods throughout, essentially accusing the president of being manipulated by foreign governments.
00:07:25.000Tulsi Gabbard put out a statement of her own.
00:07:27.000Again, she's under some fire today for having appointed people like Joe Kent, quote, Donald Trump was overwhelmingly elected by the American people to be our president and commander-in-chief.
00:07:35.000As our commander-in-chief, he is responsible for determining what is and is not an imminent threat and whether or not to take action he deems necessary to protect the safety and security of our troops, the American people, and our country.
00:07:45.000The Office of the Director of National Intelligence is responsible for helping coordinate and integrate all intelligence to provide the president and commander-in-chief with the best information available to inform his decisions.
00:07:56.000After carefully reviewing all the information before him, President Trump concluded that the terrorist Islamist regime in Iran posed an imminent threat, and he took action based on that conclusion.
00:08:04.000Now, that is a pretty weak T statement there from Tulsi Gabbard.
00:08:06.000She's not backing the president's play.
00:08:08.000She's just saying that he has the authority to do what he's doing, which we already knew.
00:08:12.000In any case, according to John Hudson of the Washington Post, quote, Kent and Tulsi Gabbard met with Vice President JD Vance at the White House on Monday per sources, which, again, is kind of weird.
00:08:21.000If you're going to resign, typically you don't meet with the vice president first to discuss such matters.
00:08:26.000During the meeting, Kent presented his resignation letter to the vice president.
00:08:30.000A White House official said the VP encouraged him to speak to the White House chief of staff and president before making any final decisions, and the VP encouraged him to be respectful to the president.
00:08:39.000But again, there are some natural lines of demarcation in this administration, and it appears that the vice president, Tulsi Gabbard, Joe Kent might be on one side of that divide.
00:08:50.000Well, it turns out this was not particularly respectful to the president, this letter, since it basically calls him a dullard working at the behest of the Zionists.
00:08:57.000But it was enough to earn him the royal treatment from our usual friends.
00:09:01.000He is slated to appear on all the leaders of the anti-Trump Grievance Party podcast, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, all the rest.
00:09:09.000And Emma's now has now discovered newfound love for Joe Kent in some strange new respect time over at MSNBC.
00:09:17.000Tom Nichols, Mr. Kent writing this sort of sentence that'll live on forever when the history of this chapter is written and the chapter on the war in Iran is written.
00:09:30.000Quote, I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.
00:09:33.000Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
00:09:42.000It's a sentence that will live on forever, says Nicole Wallace.
00:09:45.000CNN is suddenly incredibly happy with Joe Kent.
00:09:48.000Again, so much strange new respect happening for a guy that CNN hated until legitimately five seconds ago.
00:09:56.000And bully for Mr. Joe Kent for having the political courage to stand up for what he believes.
00:10:03.000You know, this is a guy that's a big-time MAGA supporter, has always been, very much like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who you had on your show yesterday.
00:10:12.000I mean, these are significant resignations from the MAGA world, and people need to take note.
00:10:19.000And I hope that this leads to the resignation of other members of the administration because he is absolutely spot on target.
00:10:26.000This is not in the best history of the United States to continue this war.
00:10:30.000And President Trump needs to shut it down as quickly as he possibly can.
00:10:35.000Well, President Trump responded to Joe Kent's resignation with a proper level of dismissiveness.
00:11:05.000Every country realized what a threat Iran was.
00:11:08.000The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it.
00:11:13.000And then for good measure, the president decided to dunk on Kent, showing his rather inconsistent feelings about the Middle East.
00:11:18.000This is a tweet that he reposted from 2020, quote, we should not sit and wait for the next attack, wipe Iran's ballistic capability out and get our troops out of Iraq.
00:11:28.000No, USWIA KIA is a tribute to the professionalism of our military and intel professionals, not Iranian restraints.
00:11:34.000So back in 2020, he, of course, was being hawkish on Iran.
00:11:37.000The White House's Caroline Lovitt released a statement detailing all the false allegations in Kent's resignation letter, and there are many.
00:11:43.000Quote, there are many false claims in this letter.
00:11:45.000Let me address one specifically: that Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.
00:11:48.000This is the same false claim Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over.
00:11:53.000As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.
00:11:59.000This evidence was compiled from many sources and factors.
00:12:01.000President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign adversary in a vacuum.
00:12:07.000Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, says Caroline Lovitt.
00:12:12.000It proudly killed Americans, waged war against our country, and openly threatened us all the way up until the launch of Operation Epic Fury.
00:12:19.000And then it goes on to explain why Joe Kent was wrong.
00:12:22.000The best comment actually came from Senator John Fetterman, who remains just hilariously awesome, who told Huffington Post, quote, I know your readership loves that, and the New York Times loves it.
00:12:32.000And he's going to be the national hero, you know, just like you made MTG.
00:12:47.000The legacy media are busy shrieking with pleasure at the supposed breakup of MAGA.
00:12:51.000Remember, Marjorie Hayler Greene, that former congresswoman who cannot tell the difference between the Gestapo and Gaspacho, like between the secret Nazi police and cold tomato soup.
00:13:03.000Once upon a time, the media mocked her.
00:13:04.000That's when she was a Trump ally, of course.
00:13:08.000It's a chance for the whole world to see who is willing to publicly embrace a loon.
00:13:37.000In some ways, some of the rhetoric she was saying was sounded like Joe Biden: there's more that unites us than divides us.
00:13:44.000That is not the sort of rhetoric we are used to hearing from President Trump and the MAGA base.
00:13:51.000Actually, that was a couple of weeks ago.
00:13:52.000Some of the MAGA influencer class are freaking out about the heartbreaking loss of former MTV host Theo Vaughan.
00:13:58.000And hey, if you've lost Theo Vaughn and his vast arsenal of foreign policy expertise, you must be in trouble, serious trouble.
00:14:06.000Here was Theo Vaughan, who could not spot Israel on a map, if spotted Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea.
00:14:12.000He was very, very upset about what's going on in a region of the world that he legitimately could not find.
00:14:19.000It feels like there's this war machine, and then our soldiers are put into these spaces, and they're just there to serve an America that they believe in.
00:14:31.000And it's no knock against them or anything like that.
00:14:34.000It's just, I just don't, I just, it just feels like it's causing a lot of pain and fear.
00:14:41.000And yeah, I don't understand our political, like, why we are so beholden to these, to this government, this Israeli government that just seems to be obsessed with control.
00:15:26.000All these people who are avoiding saying Trump's name because they're cowards, this entire op is designed to damage President Trump.
00:15:32.000And it's not going to work because Trump has the loyalty of his followers and his voters, and they trust him to do the right thing here by a margin of nine to one.
00:15:40.000But this whole thing does demonstrate the deep and abiding desire by some, both in the legacy media and in the grievance party right, to use this moment to supplant Trump.
00:15:48.000Some aren't being particularly shy about it.
00:15:51.000Candace Owens, for example, points for honesty.
00:15:54.000Quote, Joe Kent is an American patriot, hero, and veteran.
00:17:53.000And if you want to ask one of those questions and, you know, want us to actually answer it, you should go become a member at dailywire.com.
00:17:59.000Also, you should help us out and become a subscriber because that's how we bring you all of our awesome material from our shows to our movies and our documentaries, all the breaking news and all of the rest.
00:18:47.000There are lots of areas where I disagree with President Trump.
00:18:49.000I make them clear on the show when I do, whether we're talking about things like tariffs or whether we are talking about his perspective on the war in Ukraine.
00:18:58.000When I disagree with the president, I disagree with the president.
00:19:02.000But also, I don't try to claim that MAGA is mine.
00:19:35.000The question is why there are some who now feel motivated to go directly after the president and try to tear him down and supplant him with their own leadership class.
00:19:46.000Democrats are claiming, as per their usual arrangement, that the president doesn't have a plan.
00:19:50.000Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who is running for the presidency as a Democrat, but has no shot because his last name is the same as my last name, which is to say he's a Jew.
00:19:58.000He complains that Trump has no clarity about his endgame.
00:20:02.000What I would do and what the president of the United States failed to do was be clear with the American people about what the hell we were doing here.
00:20:09.000Was the plan to go after the nuclear weapons?
00:20:12.000The weapons, by the way, he said were destroyed seven years ago or seven months ago, pardon me.
00:20:17.000Was the plan to go and do regime change?
00:20:19.000In which case, who the hell is going to take over?
00:20:21.000I don't think the son's any better than the father.
00:20:24.000Was the plan to go in there later, but then you got forced because Netanyahu forced your hand?
00:20:42.000The reality is that if Donald Trump did set a bunch of goals at the beginning, repeatedly, but Democrats don't care.
00:20:48.000And are we under the impression that if President Trump had spoken about what he was going to do in Iran for say a year or two or say 47, Democrats would have any other different thoughts?
00:20:57.000President Trump, for his part, does not seem particularly worried right now.
00:21:09.000No, I'm not afraid of, I'm really not afraid of anything.
00:21:14.000Well, the reason the president is not particularly worried is because the United States and Israel have basically knocked out the entire upper echelon of the Iranian regime, among their other accomplishments.
00:21:23.000Here was President Trump talking yesterday.
00:22:00.000Israel continues to kill off all the top members of the Iranian regime.
00:22:03.000Last night, Israel took out the Iranian intelligence minister, a man named Esmail Khatib.
00:22:08.000According to the Wall Street Journal, Khatib had previously held several key roles within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, primarily holding intelligence positions according to the Israeli military.
00:22:19.000Well, you know, now he will be holding a new kind of meeting underground with the rest of the Iranian leadership, like six feet underground.
00:22:27.000How thorough is the Israeli penetration of Iran's governmental networks?
00:22:31.000There's an incredible story from the Wall Street Journal today.
00:22:34.000Apparently, Israel is now calling IRGC leadership directly, like on their cell phones, and telling them to give up the fight if they would like to live.
00:22:43.000According to the Wall Street Journal, quote, the journal reviewed the contents of one call between a senior Iranian police commander and an agent of the Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service.
00:23:15.000The Israelis have apparently dropped 10,000 munitions on Iranian targets.
00:23:19.000That includes thousands on the heads of IRGC, Assyjis, and other internal tools of the regime.
00:23:25.000Many of the tips on targets, by the way, are coming directly from Iranian citizens.
00:23:29.000So, the big outstanding issue right now remains the Strait of Hormuz.
00:23:32.000We discussed this at length yesterday.
00:23:34.000We've been discussing it for the last several weeks.
00:23:36.000President Trump had asked our allies to contribute to reopening the strait.
00:23:40.000Those allies have demonstrated all the courage of brave Sir Robin from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
00:23:46.000They would prefer to talk a big game and then let us, as usual, do all the work.
00:23:50.000In fact, here is a British man who seems like a character directly from Monty Python, Kier Starmer, the Prime Minister.
00:23:57.000At the beginning of this conflict, I made it really clear that we wouldn't join the offensive strikes that the U.S. and Israel were carrying out on Iran.
00:24:06.000We've got about 300,000 British nationals in the Gulf region, and it's important that we protect them and our Gulf allies.
00:24:14.000So we have got the IRF in particular flying airplanes across the region.
00:24:19.000They're actually intercepting strikes to stop them hitting people and buildings.
00:24:27.000We are allowing the U.S. to use our basis, but again, for defensive, collective self-defense, to take out basically the ability of Iran to put missiles into the air that are going or may go to attack our Gulf allies and our people in the Gulf.
00:24:46.000So that's a no from this thumb with glasses on really, really helping.
00:24:51.000Well, yesterday, President Trump issued a statement basically saying to our allies, listen, you don't want to help in the Strait of Harmony's fine.
00:24:57.000Quote, the United States has been informed by most of our NATO allies they don't want to get involved with our military operation against the terrorist regime of Iran in the Middle East.
00:25:05.000This, despite the fact that almost every country strongly agreed with what we're doing and that Iran cannot in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.
00:25:15.000However, because I always consider NATO, where we spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year protecting these same countries, to be a one-way street.
00:25:21.000We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us in particular in a time of need.
00:25:25.000Fortunately, we have decimated Iran's military.
00:25:29.000Their anti-aircraft and radar is gone.
00:25:31.000And perhaps most importantly, their leaders, at virtually every leader at every level, are gone, never to threaten us, our Middle Eastern allies, or the world again.
00:25:38.000Because of the fact we've never had such military success, we no longer need or desire the NATO country's assistance.
00:25:44.000Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea.
00:25:47.000In fact, says the president, speaking as the president, by far the most powerful country anywhere in the world, we do not need the help of anyone.
00:25:52.000Thank you for your attention to this matter.
00:25:54.000President Trump talked pretty openly about NATO's failure to step up yesterday.
00:26:00.000But I was surprised to see that NATO, while they agreed that it was a very important thing to do, they agree fully.
00:26:10.000They would have had a nuclear weapon within one month of when we had the B-2 bombers bomb the nuclear potential, I call it the nuclear dust.
00:26:21.000So I think NATO's making a very foolish mistake.
00:26:25.000And I've long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us.
00:26:31.000So this was a great test because we don't need them, but they should have been there.
00:28:50.000So it's quite possible that the Iranians rise up in the near future.
00:28:54.000The question, of course, is coordination and weapons.
00:28:56.000Presumably, there would be some close air support from the United States and Israel.
00:28:59.000A successful uprising in Tehran would, of course, change the world forever.
00:29:03.000This would be the best possible outcome.
00:29:05.000Then there is the second possibility, sectarian uprisings in the remote areas of Iran.
00:29:10.000We've talked about this possibility before with regard to outlying areas.
00:29:13.000Here is this map of ethnicity in Iran again.
00:29:16.000And as you see, up in the northwest portion of Iran, the portion that borders Turkey and Iraq, you have a very large Kurdish population.
00:29:25.000And then if you move just slightly east of that, bordering Azerbaijan, you have a huge Azeri population.
00:29:30.000If you look down at sort of the southeast of the country, you have the Baluch who border Pakistan.
00:29:37.000Now, it is far easier to smuggle weapons into the border areas of Iran than it is into places like Tehran because there's significantly more interior.
00:29:44.000It's also easier to penetrate with information, which means easier coordination.
00:29:48.000The IRGC also happens to be less centralized in these areas.
00:29:51.000And with the cracking of that hierarchy of control, they may be operating on their own, the IRGC.
00:29:56.000So if large-scale ethnic insurgencies were to strain the IRGC to the breaking point in these border regions, the IRGC might actually have to mobilize away from Tehran, leaving the censor strained to prevent a full-scale uprising in the capital.
00:30:10.000Now, the downside to such a solution is pretty obvious.
00:30:13.000Sectarian violence is easier to start than to stop.
00:30:16.000And it's possible that Persians, who represent 65% of the country or so, might be so concerned about the possibility of a civil war that lasts a long time that they actually acquiesce to the IRGC's centralization efforts.
00:30:28.000But suffice it to say that from America's perspective, in Iran, even in Iran, rife with internal divisions, is in Iran incapable of projecting outside force, which is our main concern.
00:30:38.000This is far from the best available outcome.
00:30:41.000But for the United States, it is Still far better than a united Iran with the mullahs in iron control.
00:30:45.000Then finally, there is the longer-term option and probably the most realistic option, the possibility that the United States achieves freedom in the Strait of Hormuz and calls it a day.
00:30:55.000Let's be clear, the Iranian government has been absolutely hammered.
00:30:58.000Their ballistic missile capacity has been essentially destroyed, as has their production capacity.
00:31:09.000Their terror arms are weaker than they have literally ever been.
00:31:12.000The vaunted Houthis, by the way, have been totally silent for the last several weeks.
00:31:16.000They have no functional economy, none.
00:31:18.000If the United States were able to open the strait, which is the only leverage that Iran has right now, there's a high likelihood that over the course of the next two years, the regime will fall into a state of complete collapse, unable to even pay its hoodlums to murder people in the streets.
00:31:32.000Now, right now, again, Iran is attempting to stave off that third possibility of eventual collapse by trying to exert control in the Strait of Hormuz and then claim some sort of victory to the people back home.
00:31:44.000If they allow the United States to reestablish freedom of transit, or even if there were to be something like a Chinese broker deal that allows freedom of transit, or if anyone reestablishes freedom of transit without Iranian overwatch, then Iran remains isolated and broken.
00:31:58.000If they continue to pry, if they continue to continue to try to pry concessions out of the United States, President Trump is significantly more likely to bear down than to back down.
00:32:07.000He's likely to go even harder, perhaps using, say, Harg Island or even unleashing special operators in Tehran directly.
00:32:14.000In fact, today, the Israelis began striking Iranian regime at gas fields.
00:32:19.000According to the Jerusalem Post, facilities linked to Iran's gas industry in South Pars and Asaluya were targeted in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday.
00:32:28.000This is an enormous development because Iran's electrical grid is really, really reliant on these gas facilities.
00:32:35.000Some 75% of Iran's gas comes from specifically those areas.
00:32:39.00080% of all electricity in Iran is generated by gas.
00:32:41.000So this could take down the entire electrical grid across Iran.
00:32:44.000Now, Iran is threatening retaliation, that they're going to go after oil fields, but here's the thing: Iran has already been doing that.
00:32:50.000They've already been firing at energy infrastructure in Saudi and UAE and Iraq, including gas fields and pipelines and ports and all the rest.
00:32:59.000The United States is moving quickly to finish off the remaining pillars of support for the Iranian regime.
00:33:04.000President Trump is even musing about the possibility of freeing up the Strait of Hormuz and then basically saying, you know what?
00:33:13.000So, what is the downside to this third option?
00:33:16.000Finish up the war fairly quickly and then eventually collapse occurs.
00:33:19.000The biggest downside to this option is basically time.
00:33:22.000The only serious danger to this strategy is the danger of delay.
00:33:26.000As President Trump has noted, let's say that the Iranians are able to stick it out just three more years and now you have a Democrat, God forbid, in the White House.
00:33:34.000And at that point, the Iranians make a last-ditch attempt to cut another deal like the Obama deal or the Biden deal that preserves their regime and rebuilds their arsenal.
00:33:43.000Again, they did this with Democrats, with Obama and with Biden.
00:33:46.000So, how much should Americans worry about the long-term endgame?
00:33:50.000It's a concern, but we shouldn't be nearly as worried as the critics would have us believe.
00:33:56.000President Trump knows the stakes of America going wobbly, and President Trump does not look as though he is interested in going wobbly.
00:34:31.000Well, this is why the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is there on the ground, bringing food, emergency equipment, care for children, and help for the elderly, and supplying bomb shelters and medical centers with critically needed essentials.
00:34:42.000If you've ever wondered what it looks like to stand with Israel for good against evil, this is a moment that shows all of it.
00:35:10.000Okay, Captain Rex, if Iran is lacking all of the capability to sustain a war, why is this still going on?
00:35:15.000Can't we just end this in like three days using full force?
00:35:18.000Probably missing something, but I'm asking.
00:35:19.000So they're really not sustaining a war as much as they are sustaining harassment.
00:35:22.000Sustaining harassment is a lot easier.
00:35:24.000So it is not as though the Iranian regime is unleashing tens of thousands of troops, crossing borders and being able to invade other countries.
00:36:43.000What does Ben think our next move in Iran should be?
00:36:46.000Well, I mean, I think that President Trump is already effectuating it.
00:36:48.000So I think that the next move in Iran is to shut down the natural gas distribution in the country, shut down the electrical grid.
00:36:54.000I think that you will see the United States possibly seize Kharg Island, which is that source for 90% of all Iranian oil, basically cut off the last lifelines to the regime and then foster some sort of uprising inside the country.
00:37:08.000I think that is the next thing that is going to happen.
00:37:12.000All those actions that I just described, the preliminaries have already been done.
00:37:16.000The Israelis, the United States, they've been taking out police stations in Tehran.
00:37:20.000The United States took out the military facilities on Kharg Island that protect against some sort of ground-landing amphibious move against Kharg Island.
00:37:29.000All those things I would imagine are on the table.
00:37:33.000Do we lose the Iranian people if the Karg Island infrastructure is damaged?
00:37:36.000No, we do not lose the Iranian people if the Harg Island infrastructure is damaged because there's not going to be a rally around the regime effect.
00:37:43.000There's going to be a let's end this war as soon as possible effect.
00:37:47.000If you have no money and no oil and no power and nothing, at a certain point, you might look at the regime and say, guys, I think you might need to go, especially when everybody's dead.
00:37:59.000The United States and Israel have absolutely wrecked these hop levels of the IRGC.
00:38:04.000If you look at a chart of the Iranian government before this, they've killed pretty much everybody at the top levels.
00:38:09.000Basically, it's like the Speaker of Parliament and the President who are left alive.
00:38:22.000I've heard Iran has a largely educated population compared to Iraq and its neighbors.
00:38:25.000How might that affect the ongoing war?
00:38:27.000I mean, it is a very educated population.
00:38:29.000So I believe 80% of Iranian adults are university educated.
00:38:33.000A huge percentage of Iranians are secular by preference.
00:38:38.000So all the talk about the IRGC having widespread support, the truth is maybe one-third of the population somewhere in that neighborhood is actually religiously Shia.
00:38:48.000A huge percentage of Persians who are not openly Shia are actually secularists.
00:38:54.000They're identified as Shia in a lot of polling, but they're not necessarily particularly religious.
00:38:59.000Well, meanwhile, back on the home front, Democrats continue to maintain their shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security, and they also continue to hold up the SAVE Act.
00:39:06.000That's the bill that would nationalize voter ID requirements, among other things.
00:39:10.000Joining us on the line to discuss is Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
00:39:13.000Senator Thune, thanks so much for taking the time.
00:39:26.000Well, so what we did is the House, I think, as you know, sent the Senate a bill that does two things, basically.
00:39:33.000It requires proof of citizenship in order to register to vote, and then it requires a voter ID to actually vote on election day or at the ballot box.
00:39:47.000And that came over from the House in the form of what we call a message, which is a unique way of transmitting legislation from House to Senate that skips a step for us.
00:39:57.000And the step that we got to skip was closure on the motion to proceed, which is a 60-vote threshold in the Senate.
00:40:03.000So we were able to get on it yesterday.
00:40:07.000We will stay on it now and have the debate and the fight that I think people want to have with the Democrats over whether or not they want to defend the position of citizens or non-citizens being able to vote in American elections.
00:40:21.000So the issue, I think, is very straightforward and simple.
00:40:24.000And that's what we want to argue, the substance of that, and force the Democrats to defend that position.
00:40:30.000I did what we call in Senate language, filled the amendment tree.
00:40:35.000So we have a couple of votes that we have set up at some point.
00:40:39.000But at least for now, we're going to allow the debate to go and let both sides get in and mix it up.
00:40:45.000But frankly, at the end of the day, this is a very difficult, I think, position for the Democrats to have to defend.
00:40:50.000And if you honestly are defending a position that non-citizens ought to be able to vote in American elections, I think that's hard to sell the American people, which is why American people are overwhelmingly in favor of our position.
00:41:03.000Well, the Democrats continue to use the power of the filibuster to hold up the SAVE Act in the final vote, Senator.
00:41:09.000And obviously that's created a lot of pressures inside the Republican chamber.
00:41:12.000I think that folks do need a reminder as to why the filibuster is important, because every so often, this has been happening for as long as I've been following politics, there's a push on the Republican side of the aisle when they have a majority to kill the filibuster.
00:41:23.000This seems to me radically short-sighted, given the fact that there are plenty of times in living memory, not all that long ago, when Democrats were running Congress and the presidency.
00:41:31.000And it seems to me the last thing you want to do is give up the power of the filibuster and the Democrats can then turn around and use against you the minute that they're in power.
00:41:39.000And historically, as you know, Ben, the filibuster has protected conservative principles and priorities way more than it has Democrats.
00:41:48.000And Democrats typically, if you look throughout history, have had majorities in the House and the Senate more frequently than Republicans.
00:41:55.000And so, you know, the idea of enabling all the things that they would do if they were able to nuke the legislative filibuster and pass their agenda with 51 votes.
00:42:04.000You'd start with, you know, adding Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. estates.
00:42:08.000You'd go to expanding the Supreme Court.
00:42:24.000I mean, people, and the other thing is, and this is probably the more practical consideration that we're dealing with right now, right here, is that the Republicans in the Senate, by big majority, support the legislative filibuster for that reason.
00:42:38.000And they understand how it's protected us in the past.
00:42:42.000It's a feature of the Senate that goes back to the country's founding.
00:42:46.000The Senate was designed to be a place to give the minority a voice in our lawmaking process.
00:42:51.000It's a way that the founders divided power in the Article I branch of the government between the House and the Senate.
00:42:56.000So there's a lot of support for the legislative filibuster.
00:42:59.000And frankly, the only way you would get the SAVE Act passed absent Democrat support would be to nuke the legislative filibuster.
00:43:06.000And the votes aren't there to do that.
00:43:09.000And, you know, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's the reality that we have to deal with.
00:43:15.000And Senator Thun, what do you make of the argument that some people have put forward that as soon as Democrats are in control, they're going to nuke the legislative filibuster.
00:43:21.000So you may as well preemptively nuke the legislative filibuster.
00:43:24.000Does that just sort of ignore how the Senate in actuality works?
00:43:28.000I understand that everybody thinks that partisan polarization means Democrats will automatically go to the extreme.
00:43:34.000Well, first off, they have to have the House, the Senate, and the White House in order to make that actually a workable proposition.
00:43:42.000And if we do our jobs right, we ought to be able to keep control of the House, Senate, and the White House.
00:43:47.000But notwithstanding that, that is the argument that probably, that's the argument, frankly, that President Trump makes on a regular basis.
00:43:53.000And it's perhaps the hardest one to defend.
00:43:56.000But I would also say, and this is the view that I think most Senate Republicans share, and somebody has described it this way, at some point the Democrats may try to steal the car, but we're not going to hand them the keys.
00:44:08.000And I think, you know, if the Republicans were to go down that path and enable all the bad stuff the Democrats are going to do when they get the chance to do it, that's not something that we want to have our fingerprints on.
00:44:21.000Now, it's possible that the Democrats will do this when they have the majorities, and they may not.
00:44:26.000I mean, they tried to do it a couple of years ago, and they had a couple of them that blocked it.
00:44:31.000And I think there are Democrats that I've talked to at least who share the view that the filibuster serves an important purpose in the Senate.
00:44:37.000And now, whether or not they continue to hold that view, if they ever have the majorities in the White House, I don't put a lot of stock in that, but I do think that that's a hypothetical.
00:44:46.000And what we're dealing with right now is reality.
00:44:49.000And the reality is there aren't the votes in the Senate among Senate Republicans to nuke the filibuster and to move everything to a 51-vote threshold.
00:44:58.000So an issue like the SAVE Act, which is very popular with the American people, and I'm not, I wouldn't say unanimously supported by Republicans and Senate, but near unanimously supported, you know, when we get a vote on it, it's going to take some Democrats to vote with us.
00:45:16.000Maybe there'll be one over in the course of the debate, but this is an issue on which they feel very strongly too.
00:45:21.000And they've made it abundantly clear that they're not going to cooperate or help in any way Republicans pass it.
00:45:27.000But I think it's an important debate to have.
00:45:29.000I think it puts everybody on the record.
00:45:31.000And this is an issue of free and safe and secure elections in this country.
00:45:36.000And we ought to do everything we can to ensure that that's the case.
00:45:41.000Well, Senator Thun, speaking of safety and security, obviously Democrats continue their partial government shutdown with regard to the Department of Homeland Security.
00:45:49.000We have TSA delays all over the country.
00:45:52.000And beyond that, we also have Iran, the leading state sponsor of terrorism on planet Earth, that the president and the military are thoroughly lacking right now that seem to be interested in activating lone wolf terrorists or assassination groups or terrorist attacks on American soil.
00:46:09.000And the DHS is partially unfunded because of the Democrats.
00:46:16.000They are, I think, defending the indefensible, and that is trying to defund law enforcement, the law enforcement, the very law enforcement that protects the homeland, customs and border patrol and immigration and customs enforcement to agencies.
00:46:32.000I mean, they just want to defund those agencies.
00:46:34.000And I think that becomes a very dangerous position for all the reasons that you've mentioned.
00:46:38.000You know, we live in a dangerous world.
00:46:39.000We've got, you know, we're involved now in Iran.
00:46:44.000There are, we're already seeing evidence and activity in this country spurred by Iran and jihadist groups and terrorist groups that are funded by Iran.
00:46:56.000And I think, you know, in order to avoid more of that kind of thing, we've got to make sure that we have these agencies that protect us from those types of attacks and incidents in this country funded.
00:47:07.000The Democrats, at least right now, are blocking that.
00:47:10.000And so they're, I just think this, in the end, Ben, this is a very hard position if you're a Democrat to defend.
00:47:24.000Now, you know, we've got other agencies in that Department of Homeland Security, like TSA, like Coast Guard, like FEMA, that are really important as well.
00:47:35.000But the Democrats, as long as they hold this bill hostage, are holding all of those functions of our government hostage and seeing that a lot of those employees aren't getting paid.
00:48:18.000So back to foreign policy for a second.
00:48:20.000You remember that third Iran strategy, you know, the one where we remove all the support pillars for the regime and then we sort of let it collapse?
00:48:26.000Well, that appears to be our strategy in Cuba, where the removal of Venezuela oil supply looks like the end of the Cuban communist regime that has basically held the island hostage for more than 60 years.
00:48:37.000President Trump announced on Monday he thinks the Cuban regime is in its final throes.
00:48:43.000You know, all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba.
00:49:17.000Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who needs to add the title of El Presidente de Cuba to his ever-growing list of honoraria, joined the chorus yesterday.
00:49:42.000And the people in charge are, they don't know how to fix it.
00:49:45.000So they have to get new people in charge.
00:49:49.000So why would this be great for America?
00:49:51.000Well, aside from not having a hellhole communist nation 90 miles off our coast, it turns out that Cuba has utilized its assets to gather intelligence on us.
00:49:59.000Here's Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Americas, Joseph Humeier, yesterday explaining.
00:50:05.000Cuba historically has been one of the strongest intelligence adversaries that we've had in the United States.
00:50:11.000They not just have penetrated our government, they penetrated other governments, partner governments throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
00:50:16.000And I think that's a tested to the fact that when Operation Absolute Resolve was carried out, it was mainly Cuban military officials that were defending Nicolas Maduro and Saifu Te Tuna and Caracas in the compound.
00:50:28.000Well, the Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canal says he is already in discussions with the United States.
00:50:32.000According to the New York Times, President Miguel Diaz-Canal announced in a state media broadcast that both he and Raul Castro, his 94-year-old predecessor, and that would be Castro's grandson as well, have also been in discussions with the United States.
00:50:44.000Quote: The discussions were based on respect for the political systems of both countries, sovereignty, and our government's self-determination.
00:50:50.000By the Calci odds right now on Miguel Diaz-Canal leaving office before May are now upwards of 50%, 50%.
00:51:02.000So, yeah, Cuba's regime looks like it is about to fall.
00:51:05.000The Wall Street Journal is reporting that protests of all types have increased from 31 in January to 60 in February to 130 in the first half of March.
00:51:13.000That's according to Cubalex, a U.S.-based human rights organization that monitors conditions on the ground.
00:51:20.000Well, Diaz is pretending not to go quietly now.
00:51:23.000He's very, very angry at the United States for cutting his line to his Venezuelan sugar daddy.
00:51:28.000So he put out a tweet yesterday: quote: The U.S. publicly threatens Cuba almost daily with overthrowing the constitutional order by force, and it uses an outrageous pretext.
00:51:37.000The harsh limitations of the weakened economy that they have attacked and sought to isolate for more than six decades.
00:51:42.000They intend and announce plans to seize the country, its resources, its properties, and even the very economy they seek to strangle to make us surrender.
00:51:50.000Only in this way can the fierce economic war be explained, which is applied as collective punishment against the entire people.
00:51:55.000In the face of the worst scenario, Cuba is accompanied by a certainty.
00:51:59.000Any external aggressor will clash with an impregnable resistance.
00:52:07.000I assume that President Trump will presumably reply with just laughter, I assume.
00:52:13.000Naturally, leave it to the Democratic Socialists of America to now try to save the Cuban regime.
00:52:18.000How are these people not being arrested already, given their treasonous support for a communist regime abroad?
00:52:24.000City Journal, a project of the fantastic Manhattan Institute, is now reporting: quote: The DSA has been sending delegations to Cuba for years to, quote unquote, educate people about the impact of the blockade and the 2021 designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
00:52:37.000Coacher Claire Bleckman said, quote, it is not very legal to send money directly to Cuba.
00:53:07.000And apparently, they will be joined by limousine socialist Hassan Piker, yet another millionaire streamer who zaps his dog and cosplays as a Maoist.
00:53:19.000He's also looking strangely bored by the whole endeavor.
00:53:22.000Well, we hope he has a great time because this may be his last chance to see Cuba before capitalism, you know, the thing he hates so much, rescues Cuba from its horrific poverty and suffering.
00:53:33.000Joining us on the line to discuss all this is Daniel DiMartino, born and raised in Venezuela.
00:53:38.000DiMartino has lived through the consequences of socialism at firsthand.
00:53:40.000He's a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
00:53:42.000Daniel, thanks so much for taking the time.
00:53:48.000So, Daniel, what are you hearing from the island about the status of the government?
00:53:51.000Obviously, those Calci markets are suggesting, Calcius is one of our sponsors.
00:53:54.000They're suggesting that Diaz-Canal and this government are on their way out.
00:53:58.000What do you think are the next steps there?
00:54:00.000Well, I think that the main time constraint happening now is the war in Iran, right?
00:54:06.000Even President Trump said it a few days ago that after we finish in Iran, he said we're going for Cuba.
00:54:11.000And the truth is, the U.S. used to have the USS GL4, the aircraft carrier in the Caribbean for the Venezuela operation.
00:54:18.000And then they had to move it to the Mediterranean Sea because of the operation in Iran.
00:54:22.000So I believe that as soon as the aircraft carrier comes back to the Caribbean, the Cuban regime is going to say, look, we don't want to end up like Maduro.
00:54:29.000We don't definitely don't want to end up like the Ayatollah.
00:54:32.000So we're just going to unilaterally surrender and do economic reforms.
00:54:51.000What do you think giving in looks like?
00:54:52.000Is that a transitional dictatorship until a democracy is established?
00:54:57.000How exactly do we plan to effectuate what would be a regime replacement in Cuba?
00:55:03.000Yeah, Cuba is much more complicated than Venezuela, I would say, because Cuba, unlike Venezuela, doesn't have an active organized opposition movement inside.
00:55:11.000Like there's nobody who is a clear leader against the Castro regime inside Cuba, only people outside.
00:55:17.000They have been very effective at pushing them out.
00:55:19.000And so I think that this is going to remain a dictatorship.
00:55:22.000They're just going to open up economically, which is going to be good for the Cuban people.
00:55:26.000But the question is: can the Trump administration even force the Cubans to create an infrastructure to even hold elections?
00:55:40.000There's not even an opposition that is allowed.
00:55:43.000So it's a much more complicated issue.
00:55:47.000So when you look at the future of Cuba, it looks like, again, the regime is going to surrender in some form or fashion to the dictates of the United States.
00:55:54.000Are you afraid, though, that as we move forward in time, President Trump is president for another couple of years here, but are you concerned that as we move forward in time, if the Democrat were to be elected, that those reforms might be reversed?
00:56:06.000And how much of a concern should that be for people who, for example, would invest in Cuba in an attempt to not only rebuild the economy, but transition the government itself away from dictatorship?
00:56:16.000Yes, that is literally the only thing that is the hope of the Cuban regime and of the Venezuelan regime, just like of the Iranians and all these other foreign dictatorships, is when Trump leaves office.
00:56:29.000Because if we don't complete in Venezuela, for example, a transition to democracy before January 20th, 2029, because the truth is, even if a Republican wins the White House, do we really think that they have the guts to do what Trump did on January 3rd?
00:56:45.000Do we really think they have the guts to do what he did on Iran?
00:56:48.000Trump has really been a unique president, both in unpredictability and deterrence effect because of the things he's proven.
00:56:55.000And I think that he needs to take advantage of the two and a half years he has left and he needs to finish this in his term.
00:57:02.000That's what's going to make Trump one of the best presidents in American history.
00:57:07.000He's going to be the president who's going to be able to say, not only did I liberate Venezuela, you know, Iran, Cuba, but I created all this space of national security for us, reduced drug trafficking, increased oil production.
00:57:37.000But again, we have so many good things for our members.
00:57:39.000I mean, not only do we have all of our shows, me, Matt Walsh, Michael Moles, Morning Wire, all the rest, not only do we have shows like Friendly Fire, not only are we bringing you breaking news and investigative news and all of our documentaries and movies and all of the rest, but get to hang out with us behind the pay.
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