The Ben Shapiro Show - The END of MAGA?

00:00:00.000 MAGA is breaking.

00:00:01.000 Trump is losing.

00:00:02.000 The sky is falling today.

00:00:03.000 We're going to talk about endings.

00:00:05.000 Every story has one.

00:00:06.000 Joe 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.

00:00:15.000 And 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.

00:00:25.000 But as it turns out, MAGA is doing just fine.

00:00:28.000 We're just shedding some excess baggage here.

00:00:30.000 Meanwhile, the end of the story in Iran is still in the making.

00:00:32.000 I will lay out three paths to how the regime can fall once and for all.

00:00:36.000 And in Cuba, decades of chaos, poverty, and corruption are finally coming to a head.

00:00:40.000 How does it all end?

00:00:41.000 We're exploring all the options today here on The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:50.000 If you're watching on YouTube, go to the link in the description.

00:00:54.000 You could get your question answered live on the show.

00:00:55.000 This is why you should become a member.

00:00:58.000 We have so much good stuff, so much show for you.

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00:01:07.000 So let's start with some facts.

00:01:10.000 According to a brand new economist YouGov poll, March 13th through 16th, how's President Trump's approval rating going on, Iran?

00:01:19.000 Well, apparently, approval of Trump's handling of the situation in Iran for MAGA.

00:01:26.000 87% support, 6% disapprove.

00:01:30.000 How about on even sending ground troops to Iran if necessary?

00:01:34.000 35% of MAGA say sure.

00:01:37.000 36% say no.

00:01:38.000 So dead even split on if Trump decides to do that, only 36% of MAGA will openly oppose that.

00:01:45.000 How about on whether to end the war quickly or stay until the objectives are achieved in Iran?

00:01:50.000 Only 30% of MAGA supporters say that we should end the war as quickly as possible.

00:01:56.000 58% say that we should keep fighting until all U.S. objectives have been achieved.

00:02:02.000 So no, President Trump is not losing MAGA.

00:02:05.000 And 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.

00:02:13.000 And they know this because they have found some new heroes, heretic MAGA, who are targeting the administration for destruction. 0.96

00:02:19.000 And this brings us to Joe Kent.

00:02:21.000 So yesterday, this lit up the interwebs and also cable news.

00:02:24.000 Joe Kent is a former failed congressional candidate from Washington State.

00:02:28.000 He was elevated to the position of director of the National Center for Counterterrorism, which you really had never heard of, by President Trump.

00:02:35.000 And he served under Tulsi Gabbard.

00:02:37.000 Kent is a former Green Beret and served in the CIA as well.

00:02:40.000 Now, Kent has a long political history.

00:02:42.000 In 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.

00:02:52.000 According to Nick Fuentes, Kent sought his support, but then was forced to disavail him when that support became public.

00:02:58.000 Kent has been for a very long time conspiratorially minded in the extreme.

00:03:03.000 He suggested that the Secret Service might have been in on the assassination attempt on President Trump in July 2024, among other bizarre theories.

00:03:10.000 He's also been strangely supportive of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin's aggression against Ukraine.

00:03:14.000 Before that, though, Kent had some bizarrely heterodox views.

00:03:19.000 In 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.

00:03:28.000 We should crush their ballistic and nuke capes and get out of Iraq with sanctions to follow. 1.00

00:03:32.000 Interesting, because that's kind of what President Trump has been doing.

00:03:35.000 Well, way back when Kent was actually nominated to serve in the federal government, MSNBC was highly critical.

00:03:43.000 That 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.

00:03:54.000 He 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.

00:04:02.000 Then, yesterday, Kent released a bizarre and paranoid letter announcing his resignation from that National Center for Counterterrorism.

00:04:08.000 In 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.

00:04:18.000 You know, you know who he's talking about, don't you?

00:04:21.000 You know, Nudge Nudge.

00:04:22.000 He 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.

00:04:36.000 And 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.

00:04:45.000 And then he wasn't done even then, actually.

00:04:47.000 He declared that his wife, who was killed by ISIS in Syria in 2019, was murdered, quote, in a war manufactured by Israel.

00:04:54.000 So 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.

00:05:07.000 The Iraq war was the fault of the Israelis, even though it was opposed at the time by the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

00:05:14.000 And also, the Israelis are at fault for his wife being murdered by ISIS in Syria somehow. 0.57

00:05:21.000 This is, to put it kind of mildly, nutty.

00:05:24.000 President Trump himself dismissed the notion he's been manipulated by the nefarious Yudin yesterday. 0.97

00:05:29.000 Here was the president.

00:05:32.000 I was against Iran long before I even thought about Israel being against Iran.

00:05:37.000 I was, if you look back many years ago, I talked about Iran was a big threat to this country, to this world of ours. 1.00

00:05:48.000 Now, Kent's take is kind of unsurprising, to be honest.

00:05:51.000 His wife works for far-left propagandist Max Blumenthal, who has worked for a wide variety of foreign propaganda outlets.

00:05:58.000 And all of this calls into question why Kent was selected for his job in the first place.

00:06:02.000 Obviously, Kent and his Ron Paul-esque foreign policy preferences have some allies in the administration.

00:06:07.000 According to Fox, Kent was, quote, a known leaker, and he was cut out of the president's intelligence briefings months ago.

00:06:13.000 The White House told DNI Tulsi Gabbard he should be fired for suspected leagues, but she never did.

00:06:18.000 He has not been part of any Iran planning discussions or briefings at all.

00:06:22.000 Now, 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.

00:06:33.000 The 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.

00:06:39.000 Here is Caroline Levitt on Fox this morning.

00:06:42.000 It's been a while since the president has seen him here at the White House.

00:06:45.000 It'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.

00:06:53.000 This was an individual who was not involved in any of the discussions pre-operation and throughout this operation.

00:07:00.000 I 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.

00:07:20.000 That's laughable and it's insulting.

00:07:23.000 She happens to be correct about this.

00:07:25.000 Tulsi Gabbard put out a statement of her own.

00:07:27.000 Again, 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.

00:07:35.000 As 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.

00:07:45.000 The 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.

00:07:56.000 After 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.

00:08:04.000 Now, that is a pretty weak T statement there from Tulsi Gabbard.

00:08:06.000 She's not backing the president's play.

00:08:08.000 She's just saying that he has the authority to do what he's doing, which we already knew.

00:08:12.000 In 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.

00:08:21.000 If you're going to resign, typically you don't meet with the vice president first to discuss such matters.

00:08:26.000 During the meeting, Kent presented his resignation letter to the vice president.

00:08:30.000 A 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.

00:08:39.000 But 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.

00:08:50.000 Well, 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. 0.57

00:08:57.000 But it was enough to earn him the royal treatment from our usual friends.

00:09:01.000 He is slated to appear on all the leaders of the anti-Trump Grievance Party podcast, Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly, all the rest.

00:09:09.000 And Emma's now has now discovered newfound love for Joe Kent in some strange new respect time over at MSNBC.

00:09:17.000 Tom 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.

00:09:29.000 I believe the sentence will be there.

00:09:30.000 Quote, I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran.

00:09:33.000 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.

00:09:42.000 It's a sentence that will live on forever, says Nicole Wallace.

00:09:44.000 Wow.

00:09:45.000 CNN is suddenly incredibly happy with Joe Kent.

00:09:48.000 Again, so much strange new respect happening for a guy that CNN hated until legitimately five seconds ago.

00:09:56.000 And bully for Mr. Joe Kent for having the political courage to stand up for what he believes.

00:10:03.000 You 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.

00:10:12.000 I mean, these are significant resignations from the MAGA world, and people need to take note.

00:10:19.000 And I hope that this leads to the resignation of other members of the administration because he is absolutely spot on target.

00:10:26.000 This is not in the best history of the United States to continue this war.

00:10:30.000 And President Trump needs to shut it down as quickly as he possibly can.

00:10:35.000 Well, President Trump responded to Joe Kent's resignation with a proper level of dismissiveness.

00:10:39.000 Here was the president yesterday.

00:10:42.000 Well, I read his statement.

00:10:43.000 I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.

00:10:50.000 I didn't know him well, but I thought he seemed like a pretty nice guy.

00:10:56.000 But when I read his statement, I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat.

00:11:04.000 Iran was a threat. 1.00

00:11:05.000 Every country realized what a threat Iran was. 1.00

00:11:08.000 The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it.

00:11:13.000 And then for good measure, the president decided to dunk on Kent, showing his rather inconsistent feelings about the Middle East.

00:11:18.000 This 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.

00:11:26.000 They're only targets now.

00:11:28.000 No, USWIA KIA is a tribute to the professionalism of our military and intel professionals, not Iranian restraints.

00:11:34.000 So back in 2020, he, of course, was being hawkish on Iran.

00:11:37.000 The White House's Caroline Lovitt released a statement detailing all the false allegations in Kent's resignation letter, and there are many.

00:11:43.000 Quote, there are many false claims in this letter.

00:11:45.000 Let me address one specifically: that Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation.

00:11:48.000 This is the same false claim Democrats and some in the liberal media have been repeating over and over.

00:11:53.000 As President Trump has clearly and explicitly stated, he had strong and compelling evidence that Iran was going to attack the United States first.

00:11:59.000 This evidence was compiled from many sources and factors.

00:12:01.000 President Trump would never make the decision to deploy military assets against a foreign adversary in a vacuum.

00:12:07.000 Iran is the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, says Caroline Lovitt. 0.69

00:12:10.000 The Iranian regime is evil. 0.93

00:12:12.000 It proudly killed Americans, waged war against our country, and openly threatened us all the way up until the launch of Operation Epic Fury. 0.83

00:12:19.000 And then it goes on to explain why Joe Kent was wrong.

00:12:22.000 The 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.

00:12:32.000 And he's going to be the national hero, you know, just like you made MTG.

00:12:35.000 That was your mascot for a while. 0.99

00:12:36.000 But now her crazy ass is now all about Tucker Carlson. 1.00

00:12:39.000 So I really don't care what he chose to do. 0.99

00:12:40.000 I wish the best for him in his next life.

00:12:42.000 A perfectly fair statement from the Pennsylvania senator.

00:12:46.000 Now, he's right.

00:12:47.000 The legacy media are busy shrieking with pleasure at the supposed breakup of MAGA.

00:12:51.000 Remember, 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.

00:13:03.000 Once upon a time, the media mocked her.

00:13:04.000 That's when she was a Trump ally, of course.

00:13:08.000 It's a chance for the whole world to see who is willing to publicly embrace a loon.

00:13:13.000 Those are Mitch McConnell's words.

00:13:15.000 A woman who is dubious about whether the attacks of 9-11 were real.

00:13:20.000 A woman who has endorsed calls to assassinate Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton.

00:13:28.000 But that was back when she was a Trump supporter.

00:13:30.000 Now she is being feted by CNN. 0.94

00:13:32.000 Here's the CNN panel last night.

00:13:35.000 I see change from what we've seen.

00:13:37.000 In some ways, some of the rhetoric she was saying was sounded like Joe Biden: there's more that unites us than divides us.

00:13:44.000 That is not the sort of rhetoric we are used to hearing from President Trump and the MAGA base.

00:13:51.000 Actually, that was a couple of weeks ago.

00:13:52.000 Some of the MAGA influencer class are freaking out about the heartbreaking loss of former MTV host Theo Vaughan.

00:13:58.000 And hey, if you've lost Theo Vaughn and his vast arsenal of foreign policy expertise, you must be in trouble, serious trouble.

00:14:06.000 Here was Theo Vaughan, who could not spot Israel on a map, if spotted Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea.

00:14:12.000 He was very, very upset about what's going on in a region of the world that he legitimately could not find.

00:14:19.000 It 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.

00:14:31.000 And it's no knock against them or anything like that.

00:14:34.000 It's just, I just don't, I just, it just feels like it's causing a lot of pain and fear.

00:14:41.000 And 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. 0.62

00:15:05.000 Hey, man.

00:15:06.000 Hey, bro.

00:15:07.000 Hey, dude.

00:15:08.000 If business and front party and back hosts aren't with you, who is?

00:15:13.000 I mean, aside from 90% of actual MAGA, the myth-making about the war in Iran is indeed a motivated op.

00:15:20.000 It is designed to undermine support for the war.

00:15:22.000 It is also meant to damage President Trump.

00:15:25.000 Let's be real about this. 0.67

00:15:26.000 All these people who are avoiding saying Trump's name because they're cowards, this entire op is designed to damage President Trump.

00:15:32.000 And 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.

00:15:40.000 But 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.

00:15:48.000 Some aren't being particularly shy about it.

00:15:51.000 Candace Owens, for example, points for honesty.

00:15:54.000 Quote, Joe Kent is an American patriot, hero, and veteran. 0.97

00:15:58.000 Trump is a shameful president.

00:15:59.000 May American troops take his lead and look into conscientious objection to Bibi's red heifer war, Goyam Stand Down. 1.00

00:16:06.000 Points to the crazy lady who talks to ghosts, at least for honesty. 1.00

00:16:11.000 Tucker Carlson only hints at this. 0.97

00:16:13.000 He's still too chicken to say Trump's name.

00:16:16.000 Marjorie Taylor is actually doing even more. 0.64

00:16:18.000 She's busily calling Trump a traitor to MAGA, which is kind of like calling Thomas Edison a traitor to the light bulb.

00:16:25.000 But make no mistake, Trump is still very much in control of MAGA.

00:16:28.000 And when he wins the war, that control will solidify even further as it should.

00:16:32.000 Speaking of which, we seem to be nearing something big in Iran.

00:16:37.000 We'll get to that in one second.

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00:17:47.000 All right, folks, if you're watching on YouTube, again, we're going to take questions during the show, like live.

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00:18:10.000 Say, Abby, what have we?

00:18:11.000 Let's do this.

00:18:11.000 So, J-Bud F, question for Ben.

00:18:13.000 Was a split with people like Joe Kent something you saw possibly happening in the past?

00:18:17.000 Because I had a strong feeling he was pretty crazy when running for my district.

00:18:20.000 I'm surprised others didn't see it.

00:18:21.000 Yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of these splits have been coming for a long time because here's the thing.

00:18:25.000 President Trump, he is sued generous.

00:18:27.000 He contains multitudes.

00:18:29.000 But in the end, President Trump has instincts and then he acts upon those instincts.

00:18:33.000 One of the things that I always find really strange is people trying to quote unquote grab MAGA away from Trump.

00:18:38.000 So I voted for President Trump in 2020.

00:18:40.000 I campaigned for him in 2024.

00:18:42.000 I gave money to his campaign in 2024 and all the rest.

00:18:44.000 I did a fundraiser for him.

00:18:46.000 Okay, here is the thing.

00:18:47.000 There are lots of areas where I disagree with President Trump.

00:18:49.000 I 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.

00:18:58.000 When I disagree with the president, I disagree with the president.

00:19:02.000 But also, I don't try to claim that MAGA is mine. 0.97

00:19:05.000 He's a traitor to me. 0.66

00:19:07.000 The president is the president. 0.97

00:19:10.000 I am a citizen with a perspective on what he is doing.

00:19:13.000 The bizarre notion, what you're seeing here is not just people who are quote unquote disagreeing with President Trump.

00:19:18.000 What they're trying to do is claim that he is a traitor to the program that he created, the movement that he created.

00:19:25.000 That is a revolutionary attempt.

00:19:28.000 And so was this going to happen?

00:19:30.000 Yeah, I mean, there are always gaps in the Trump coalition.

00:19:32.000 There always are in any coalition.

00:19:35.000 The 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.

00:19:44.000 Well, back to the war in Iran.

00:19:46.000 Democrats are claiming, as per their usual arrangement, that the president doesn't have a plan.

00:19:50.000 Governor 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.

00:19:58.000 He complains that Trump has no clarity about his endgame.

00:20:02.000 What 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.

00:20:09.000 Was the plan to go after the nuclear weapons?

00:20:12.000 The weapons, by the way, he said were destroyed seven years ago or seven months ago, pardon me.

00:20:17.000 Was the plan to go and do regime change?

00:20:19.000 In which case, who the hell is going to take over?

00:20:21.000 I don't think the son's any better than the father.

00:20:24.000 Was the plan to go in there later, but then you got forced because Netanyahu forced your hand?

00:20:30.000 Remember, they said that back.

00:20:33.000 I think if you don't have clarity on why you're going in, you have no way of knowing how the hell to get out.

00:20:41.000 Okay, this is all nonsense.

00:20:42.000 The reality is that if Donald Trump did set a bunch of goals at the beginning, repeatedly, but Democrats don't care.

00:20:48.000 And 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?

00:20:57.000 President Trump, for his part, does not seem particularly worried right now.

00:21:02.000 The Iranian regime is built on ease. 0.91

00:21:04.000 If you put boots on the ground in Iran, it will be another Vietnam. 1.00

00:21:08.000 Are you afraid of that?

00:21:09.000 No, I'm not afraid of, I'm really not afraid of anything.

00:21:14.000 Well, 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. 0.64

00:21:23.000 Here was President Trump talking yesterday.

00:21:26.000 So I have Marco here.

00:21:27.000 We have a lot of our great people.

00:21:29.000 JD is here.

00:21:30.000 They're all here.

00:21:31.000 And I say, let's do this.

00:21:34.000 We've got to do it right.

00:21:35.000 Should have been done by many presidents.

00:21:37.000 Should have been done long before 47 years.

00:21:40.000 It's 40 years of living in terror.

00:21:42.000 You know, they're called the bully of the Middle East, but they're really the bully of the world because they used oil to bribe, right? 1.00

00:21:49.000 They used oil to bribe and to gain power.

00:21:53.000 I don't know what they gained.

00:21:54.000 What the hell?

00:21:54.000 What did they gain?

00:21:55.000 How are they doing?

00:21:56.000 They're all gone now.

00:21:56.000 Not so good.

00:21:59.000 Well, that is true. 0.88

00:22:00.000 Israel continues to kill off all the top members of the Iranian regime.

00:22:03.000 Last night, Israel took out the Iranian intelligence minister, a man named Esmail Khatib.

00:22:08.000 According 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.

00:22:19.000 Well, you know, now he will be holding a new kind of meeting underground with the rest of the Iranian leadership, like six feet underground.

00:22:27.000 How thorough is the Israeli penetration of Iran's governmental networks?

00:22:31.000 There's an incredible story from the Wall Street Journal today.

00:22:34.000 Apparently, 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.

00:22:43.000 According 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.

00:22:53.000 Can you hear me?

00:22:53.000 A Mossad agent can be heard speaking Farsi.

00:22:55.000 We know everything about you.

00:22:57.000 You are on a blacklist, and we have all the information about you.

00:23:00.000 Okay, said the commander in the recording.

00:23:02.000 I called to warn you in advance that you should stand with your people's side, said the Mossad agent.

00:23:06.000 And if you do not do that, your destiny will be as your leader.

00:23:08.000 Do you hear me?

00:23:09.000 And the commander said, brother, I swear on the Quran, I'm not your enemy.

00:23:11.000 I'm a dead man already.

00:23:12.000 Just please come help us.

00:23:15.000 The Israelis have apparently dropped 10,000 munitions on Iranian targets.

00:23:19.000 That includes thousands on the heads of IRGC, Assyjis, and other internal tools of the regime.

00:23:25.000 Many of the tips on targets, by the way, are coming directly from Iranian citizens.

00:23:29.000 So, the big outstanding issue right now remains the Strait of Hormuz.

00:23:32.000 We discussed this at length yesterday.

00:23:34.000 We've been discussing it for the last several weeks.

00:23:36.000 President Trump had asked our allies to contribute to reopening the strait.

00:23:40.000 Those allies have demonstrated all the courage of brave Sir Robin from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

00:23:46.000 They would prefer to talk a big game and then let us, as usual, do all the work.

00:23:50.000 In fact, here is a British man who seems like a character directly from Monty Python, Kier Starmer, the Prime Minister.

00:23:57.000 At 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.

00:24:06.000 We've got about 300,000 British nationals in the Gulf region, and it's important that we protect them and our Gulf allies.

00:24:14.000 So we have got the IRF in particular flying airplanes across the region.

00:24:19.000 They're actually intercepting strikes to stop them hitting people and buildings.

00:24:23.000 So that's defensive action.

00:24:25.000 But we're not joining the war.

00:24:27.000 We 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.

00:24:46.000 So that's a no from this thumb with glasses on really, really helping.

00:24:51.000 Well, 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.

00:24:57.000 Quote, 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.

00:25:05.000 This, 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.

00:25:13.000 I'm not surprised by their action.

00:25:15.000 However, 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.

00:25:21.000 We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us in particular in a time of need.

00:25:25.000 Fortunately, we have decimated Iran's military. 1.00

00:25:27.000 Their navy is gone.

00:25:28.000 Their air force is gone.

00:25:29.000 Their anti-aircraft and radar is gone.

00:25:31.000 And 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.

00:25:38.000 Because of the fact we've never had such military success, we no longer need or desire the NATO country's assistance.

00:25:43.000 We never did.

00:25:44.000 Likewise, Japan, Australia, or South Korea.

00:25:47.000 In 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.

00:25:52.000 Thank you for your attention to this matter.

00:25:54.000 President Trump talked pretty openly about NATO's failure to step up yesterday.

00:26:00.000 But I was surprised to see that NATO, while they agreed that it was a very important thing to do, they agree fully.

00:26:07.000 Nobody said, oh, you shouldn't do it.

00:26:10.000 They 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. 0.96

00:26:21.000 So I think NATO's making a very foolish mistake.

00:26:25.000 And I've long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us.

00:26:31.000 So this was a great test because we don't need them, but they should have been there.

00:26:38.000 So what comes next?

00:26:40.000 Well, it does feel like something big is coming.

00:26:42.000 Here was the president yesterday.

00:26:45.000 And as soon as that war is over, which will be soon, your prices are going to drop like a rock.

00:26:51.000 You watch.

00:26:57.000 So, what exactly is coming soon?

00:27:00.000 Well, there are essentially three possibilities.

00:27:01.000 The first would be the best case scenario, a quick unified uprising against the regime.

00:27:05.000 Clearly, Israel and the United States have been paving the way for this. 0.93

00:27:09.000 This right here is a map of Tehran's police stations.

00:27:12.000 Do you notice something?

00:27:14.000 You might notice that many of them are being directly targeted, like a lot of them, all over Tehran.

00:27:21.000 Lots of strikes directly in Tehran by suicide drones, specific police stations being taken out.

00:27:27.000 And the Israelis seem to be prepping the ground in Iran for such an uprising. 0.93

00:27:30.000 Yesterday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now remember, folks, X rots your brain.

00:27:35.000 X and TikTok, they decided a couple of days ago that Netanyahu was dead.

00:27:39.000 And then Netanyahu released a video of himself in a coffee shop getting coffee.

00:27:43.000 And then they decided that that was AI.

00:27:45.000 And then he released a video with himself and Mike Huckabee, our ambassador to Israel.

00:27:49.000 And they decided that was AI. 0.99

00:27:51.000 If you believe all this crap, you're the mark, folks. 1.00

00:27:53.000 You're the mark. 0.99

00:27:54.000 Anyway, this is tape of Netanyahu alongside the Israeli Defense Minister, Chief of Staff, Head of Mossad, and chief of the Air Force.

00:28:00.000 You'll notice they are all alive, unlike their counterparts in Iran. 1.00

00:28:04.000 And they are telling people in Iran to have a wonderful Nauruz.

00:28:08.000 I'm here with Israel's defense minister, our chief of staff, the head of the Mossad, the chief of air force, our senior commanders.

00:28:16.000 In the past 24 hours, we knocked out two of the terrorist chieftains, the top terrorist chieftains of this tyranny.

00:28:22.000 Our aircraft are hitting the terror operatives on the ground, in the crossroads, in the city squares.

00:28:31.000 This is meant to enable the brave people of Iran to celebrate the festival of fire. 0.94

00:28:37.000 So celebrate and happy Nowruz.

00:28:40.000 We're watching from above.

00:28:44.000 Okay, go out and celebrate.

00:28:45.000 We're watching from above is a hell of a statement.

00:28:47.000 For the record, Nowruz is Friday.

00:28:50.000 So it's quite possible that the Iranians rise up in the near future. 1.00

00:28:54.000 The question, of course, is coordination and weapons.

00:28:56.000 Presumably, there would be some close air support from the United States and Israel.

00:28:59.000 A successful uprising in Tehran would, of course, change the world forever. 1.00

00:29:03.000 This would be the best possible outcome.

00:29:05.000 Then there is the second possibility, sectarian uprisings in the remote areas of Iran.

00:29:10.000 We've talked about this possibility before with regard to outlying areas.

00:29:13.000 Here is this map of ethnicity in Iran again.

00:29:16.000 And as you see, up in the northwest portion of Iran, the portion that borders Turkey and Iraq, you have a very large Kurdish population.

00:29:25.000 And then if you move just slightly east of that, bordering Azerbaijan, you have a huge Azeri population.

00:29:30.000 If you look down at sort of the southeast of the country, you have the Baluch who border Pakistan.

00:29:37.000 Now, 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.

00:29:44.000 It's also easier to penetrate with information, which means easier coordination.

00:29:48.000 The IRGC also happens to be less centralized in these areas.

00:29:51.000 And with the cracking of that hierarchy of control, they may be operating on their own, the IRGC.

00:29:56.000 So 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.

00:30:10.000 Now, the downside to such a solution is pretty obvious.

00:30:13.000 Sectarian violence is easier to start than to stop. 0.88

00:30:16.000 And 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.

00:30:27.000 That's a real concern.

00:30:28.000 But 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.

00:30:38.000 This is far from the best available outcome.

00:30:41.000 But for the United States, it is Still far better than a united Iran with the mullahs in iron control. 0.95

00:30:45.000 Then 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.

00:30:55.000 Let's be clear, the Iranian government has been absolutely hammered.

00:30:58.000 Their ballistic missile capacity has been essentially destroyed, as has their production capacity.

00:31:02.000 The same is true of their drones.

00:31:04.000 Their nuclear facilities have been degraded beyond recognition.

00:31:06.000 Their air force no longer exists.

00:31:08.000 Their navy has been sunk.

00:31:09.000 Their terror arms are weaker than they have literally ever been.

00:31:12.000 The vaunted Houthis, by the way, have been totally silent for the last several weeks.

00:31:16.000 They have no functional economy, none.

00:31:18.000 If 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. 0.89

00:31:32.000 Now, 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. 0.71

00:31:42.000 But they're in a bit of a catch-22.

00:31:44.000 If 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. 0.59

00:31:58.000 If 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.

00:32:07.000 He's likely to go even harder, perhaps using, say, Harg Island or even unleashing special operators in Tehran directly.

00:32:14.000 In fact, today, the Israelis began striking Iranian regime at gas fields.

00:32:17.000 This is a big story.

00:32:19.000 According to the Jerusalem Post, facilities linked to Iran's gas industry in South Pars and Asaluya were targeted in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday.

00:32:28.000 This is an enormous development because Iran's electrical grid is really, really reliant on these gas facilities.

00:32:35.000 Some 75% of Iran's gas comes from specifically those areas.

00:32:39.000 80% of all electricity in Iran is generated by gas.

00:32:41.000 So this could take down the entire electrical grid across Iran.

00:32:44.000 Now, Iran is threatening retaliation, that they're going to go after oil fields, but here's the thing: Iran has already been doing that. 0.61

00:32:50.000 They've already been firing at energy infrastructure in Saudi and UAE and Iraq, including gas fields and pipelines and ports and all the rest.

00:32:59.000 The United States is moving quickly to finish off the remaining pillars of support for the Iranian regime.

00:33:04.000 President Trump is even musing about the possibility of freeing up the Strait of Hormuz and then basically saying, you know what?

00:33:10.000 You all police it.

00:33:11.000 You all police it.

00:33:13.000 So, what is the downside to this third option?

00:33:16.000 Finish up the war fairly quickly and then eventually collapse occurs.

00:33:19.000 The biggest downside to this option is basically time.

00:33:22.000 The only serious danger to this strategy is the danger of delay.

00:33:26.000 As 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.

00:33:34.000 And 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. 0.84

00:33:43.000 Again, they did this with Democrats, with Obama and with Biden.

00:33:46.000 So, how much should Americans worry about the long-term endgame?

00:33:50.000 It's a concern, but we shouldn't be nearly as worried as the critics would have us believe.

00:33:56.000 President Trump knows the stakes of America going wobbly, and President Trump does not look as though he is interested in going wobbly.

00:34:03.000 Get to more in a moment.

00:34:04.000 First, this episode is sponsored by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.

00:34:08.000 Let me paint you a picture.

00:34:09.000 It's midnight and sirens are blaring.

00:34:10.000 You have only seconds to grab your child and run.

00:34:13.000 Now, imagine you're elderly, your legs don't work like they used to.

00:34:15.000 Getting downstairs feels impossible.

00:34:17.000 And then you may end up in a bomb shelter for hours or even days.

00:34:19.000 And by the way, this is a very real thing happening in Israel.

00:34:22.000 Last night, the Iranians fired missiles with cluster munitions at the end of them.

00:34:26.000 One of them hit an apartment with two 70-year-olds in Tel Aviv.

00:34:30.000 Two people were killed.

00:34:31.000 Well, 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.

00:34:42.000 If 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.

00:34:48.000 Please act right now.

00:34:49.000 Give $45 right now to rush life-saving essentials to the vulnerable under fire.

00:34:54.000 Visit benforthefellowship.org to rush your life-saving gifts.

00:34:57.000 That is one word, ben for thefellowship.org.

00:35:00.000 Again, there are lots of people in need right now over there, and the fellowship is doing great work.

00:35:03.000 Go check them out.

00:35:04.000 BenfordThefellowship.org.

00:35:06.000 All right, Savvy, have we a member question?

00:35:09.000 We do.

00:35:10.000 Okay, Captain Rex, if Iran is lacking all of the capability to sustain a war, why is this still going on?

00:35:15.000 Can't we just end this in like three days using full force?

00:35:18.000 Probably missing something, but I'm asking.

00:35:19.000 So they're really not sustaining a war as much as they are sustaining harassment.

00:35:22.000 Sustaining harassment is a lot easier.

00:35:24.000 So it is not as though the Iranian regime is unleashing tens of thousands of troops, crossing borders and being able to invade other countries.

00:35:30.000 That's not what's happening.

00:35:31.000 They're firing desultory rounds of missiles and drones at various targets.

00:35:38.000 Meanwhile, they've been utterly wrecked.

00:35:39.000 So if you were just to declare who won the war already, the United States already won, as the president keeps saying.

00:35:45.000 The question of, you know, why can't we quote unquote destroy them?

00:35:50.000 It depends on your definition of destroy, right?

00:35:52.000 This is really, I think, the question of the end game.

00:35:54.000 What does destruction look like?

00:35:55.000 If you're talking about did we destroy their military capacity to do forward action, the answer is largely yes.

00:36:00.000 They can fire an occasional drone at an oil port in Iraq.

00:36:04.000 They could do that.

00:36:05.000 But, you know, that's pretty much all they can do. 0.99

00:36:07.000 They can fire some missiles at Israel, most of which will be knockdown, and they can kill a couple of old people in Ramat Ghan. 0.95

00:36:12.000 But that's kind of the whole thing. 0.82

00:36:15.000 I mean, yes, listen, if the United States wanted, we could topple the regime in three days.

00:36:19.000 But the question is what that would require.

00:36:21.000 And the answer is it would require some boots on the ground.

00:36:24.000 The question is how many, what the military planning for that looks like.

00:36:27.000 And nobody, nobody wants 100,000 American troops on the ground as we had during the Iraq War.

00:36:32.000 This is where you have bipartisan agreement.

00:36:34.000 But I don't think that's going to be necessary.

00:36:36.000 I mean, we just drew out some of the options.

00:36:38.000 I think those options are largely correct.

00:36:40.000 Savvy, have we more questions?

00:36:41.000 We do.

00:36:42.000 Go dog.

00:36:43.000 What does Ben think our next move in Iran should be?

00:36:46.000 Well, I mean, I think that President Trump is already effectuating it.

00:36:48.000 So I think that the next move in Iran is to shut down the natural gas distribution in the country, shut down the electrical grid.

00:36:54.000 I 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.

00:37:08.000 I think that is the next thing that is going to happen.

00:37:09.000 I think it's already underway.

00:37:12.000 All those actions that I just described, the preliminaries have already been done.

00:37:16.000 The Israelis, the United States, they've been taking out police stations in Tehran.

00:37:20.000 The United States took out the military facilities on Kharg Island that protect against some sort of ground-landing amphibious move against Kharg Island.

00:37:29.000 All those things I would imagine are on the table.

00:37:31.000 Which brings us to Atarki Park.

00:37:33.000 Do we lose the Iranian people if the Karg Island infrastructure is damaged?

00:37:36.000 No, 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.

00:37:43.000 There's going to be a let's end this war as soon as possible effect. 0.68

00:37:47.000 If 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.

00:37:59.000 The United States and Israel have absolutely wrecked these hop levels of the IRGC. 0.99

00:38:04.000 If you look at a chart of the Iranian government before this, they've killed pretty much everybody at the top levels.

00:38:09.000 Basically, it's like the Speaker of Parliament and the President who are left alive.

00:38:13.000 Everybody else has been killed.

00:38:14.000 The foreign minister, Abbas Iraqi, he's still around to mouth off on NBC.

00:38:18.000 But that's about it.

00:38:19.000 Not much left over there.

00:38:20.000 Tiberius 202.

00:38:22.000 I've heard Iran has a largely educated population compared to Iraq and its neighbors.

00:38:25.000 How might that affect the ongoing war?

00:38:27.000 I mean, it is a very educated population.

00:38:29.000 So I believe 80% of Iranian adults are university educated.

00:38:33.000 A huge percentage of Iranians are secular by preference.

00:38:38.000 So 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.

00:38:48.000 A huge percentage of Persians who are not openly Shia are actually secularists.

00:38:54.000 They're identified as Shia in a lot of polling, but they're not necessarily particularly religious.

00:38:59.000 Well, 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.

00:39:06.000 That's the bill that would nationalize voter ID requirements, among other things.

00:39:10.000 Joining us on the line to discuss is Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

00:39:13.000 Senator Thune, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:39:14.000 Really appreciate it.

00:39:16.000 Ben, always good being with you.

00:39:17.000 Thank you.

00:39:19.000 So why don't you give us the update on the SAVE Act?

00:39:21.000 Obviously, a lot of pressure from the White House to push that forward.

00:39:24.000 What's the plan?

00:39:26.000 Well, so what we did is the House, I think, as you know, sent the Senate a bill that does two things, basically.

00:39:33.000 It 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.

00:39:45.000 And so that's what we got on.

00:39:47.000 And 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.

00:39:57.000 And the step that we got to skip was closure on the motion to proceed, which is a 60-vote threshold in the Senate.

00:40:03.000 So we were able to get on it yesterday.

00:40:04.000 We got 51 votes to get on the bill.

00:40:07.000 We 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.

00:40:21.000 So the issue, I think, is very straightforward and simple.

00:40:24.000 And that's what we want to argue, the substance of that, and force the Democrats to defend that position.

00:40:29.000 So we'll continue that.

00:40:30.000 I did what we call in Senate language, filled the amendment tree.

00:40:35.000 So we have a couple of votes that we have set up at some point.

00:40:39.000 But at least for now, we're going to allow the debate to go and let both sides get in and mix it up.

00:40:45.000 But frankly, at the end of the day, this is a very difficult, I think, position for the Democrats to have to defend.

00:40:50.000 And 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. 0.99

00:41:03.000 Well, the Democrats continue to use the power of the filibuster to hold up the SAVE Act in the final vote, Senator.

00:41:09.000 And obviously that's created a lot of pressures inside the Republican chamber.

00:41:12.000 I 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.

00:41:23.000 This 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.

00:41:31.000 And 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.

00:41:39.000 That's correct.

00:41:39.000 And historically, as you know, Ben, the filibuster has protected conservative principles and priorities way more than it has Democrats.

00:41:48.000 And Democrats typically, if you look throughout history, have had majorities in the House and the Senate more frequently than Republicans.

00:41:55.000 And 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.

00:42:04.000 You'd start with, you know, adding Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. estates.

00:42:08.000 You'd go to expanding the Supreme Court.

00:42:11.000 You'd federalize our elections. 0.53

00:42:13.000 You'd have a wealth tax.

00:42:15.000 You'd have no, you'd have abortion on demand. 1.00

00:42:19.000 I mean, there's so many things that the Democrats would do if that happened.

00:42:22.000 And so it's important.

00:42:24.000 I 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.

00:42:38.000 And they understand how it's protected us in the past.

00:42:42.000 It's a feature of the Senate that goes back to the country's founding.

00:42:46.000 The Senate was designed to be a place to give the minority a voice in our lawmaking process. 0.84

00:42:51.000 It's a way that the founders divided power in the Article I branch of the government between the House and the Senate.

00:42:56.000 So there's a lot of support for the legislative filibuster.

00:42:59.000 And frankly, the only way you would get the SAVE Act passed absent Democrat support would be to nuke the legislative filibuster.

00:43:06.000 And the votes aren't there to do that.

00:43:07.000 It's just a function of math.

00:43:09.000 And, you know, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but that's the reality that we have to deal with.

00:43:15.000 And 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.

00:43:21.000 So you may as well preemptively nuke the legislative filibuster.

00:43:24.000 Does that just sort of ignore how the Senate in actuality works?

00:43:28.000 I understand that everybody thinks that partisan polarization means Democrats will automatically go to the extreme.

00:43:32.000 What do you make of that position?

00:43:34.000 Well, first off, they have to have the House, the Senate, and the White House in order to make that actually a workable proposition.

00:43:42.000 And if we do our jobs right, we ought to be able to keep control of the House, Senate, and the White House.

00:43:47.000 But notwithstanding that, that is the argument that probably, that's the argument, frankly, that President Trump makes on a regular basis.

00:43:53.000 And it's perhaps the hardest one to defend.

00:43:56.000 But 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.

00:44:08.000 And 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.

00:44:21.000 Now, it's possible that the Democrats will do this when they have the majorities, and they may not.

00:44:26.000 I mean, they tried to do it a couple of years ago, and they had a couple of them that blocked it.

00:44:31.000 And 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.

00:44:37.000 And 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.

00:44:46.000 And what we're dealing with right now is reality.

00:44:49.000 And 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.

00:44:58.000 So 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.

00:45:15.000 And who knows?

00:45:16.000 Maybe there'll be one over in the course of the debate, but this is an issue on which they feel very strongly too.

00:45:21.000 And they've made it abundantly clear that they're not going to cooperate or help in any way Republicans pass it.

00:45:27.000 But I think it's an important debate to have.

00:45:29.000 I think it puts everybody on the record.

00:45:31.000 And this is an issue of free and safe and secure elections in this country.

00:45:36.000 And we ought to do everything we can to ensure that that's the case.

00:45:41.000 Well, Senator Thun, speaking of safety and security, obviously Democrats continue their partial government shutdown with regard to the Department of Homeland Security.

00:45:47.000 This seems absolutely insane to me.

00:45:49.000 We have TSA delays all over the country.

00:45:52.000 And 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.

00:46:09.000 And the DHS is partially unfunded because of the Democrats.

00:46:12.000 Is that going to come to an end?

00:46:14.000 What are Democrats doing here?

00:46:16.000 They 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.

00:46:31.000 And that's what this is all about.

00:46:32.000 I mean, they just want to defund those agencies.

00:46:34.000 And I think that becomes a very dangerous position for all the reasons that you've mentioned.

00:46:38.000 You know, we live in a dangerous world.

00:46:39.000 We've got, you know, we're involved now in Iran.

00:46:44.000 There 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.

00:46:56.000 And 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.

00:47:07.000 The Democrats, at least right now, are blocking that.

00:47:10.000 And so they're, I just think this, in the end, Ben, this is a very hard position if you're a Democrat to defend.

00:47:16.000 They've tried it before.

00:47:17.000 They've kind of gone down that defund the police, defund law enforcement track, and it didn't work so well for them.

00:47:23.000 And that's essentially what this is.

00:47:24.000 Now, 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.

00:47:35.000 But 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.

00:47:44.000 It's an unsustainable position.

00:47:47.000 And it all comes back to the Trump derangement syndrome.

00:47:50.000 They hate the president.

00:47:51.000 They're blinded by their hatred of him.

00:47:53.000 And, you know, and they don't want to do anything to fund ICE or customs and border patrol.

00:47:58.000 And I think that's a losing hand for them in the end.

00:48:02.000 But they seem to think they're winning politically right now, which is why I think they've adopted that position.

00:48:08.000 Well, that is Senate Majority Leader John Thun.

00:48:10.000 Senator Thun, really appreciate your time and your insight.

00:48:12.000 Keep up the good fight.

00:48:14.000 Appreciate it.

00:48:15.000 Good talk.

00:48:15.000 Thanks, Ben.

00:48:18.000 So back to foreign policy for a second.

00:48:20.000 You 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? 0.83

00:48:26.000 Well, 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.

00:48:37.000 President Trump announced on Monday he thinks the Cuban regime is in its final throes.

00:48:43.000 You know, all my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba.

00:48:47.000 When will the United States do it?

00:48:49.000 I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba.

00:48:56.000 That'd be a good honor.

00:48:57.000 That's a big honor.

00:48:58.000 Taking Cuba. 0.96

00:48:59.000 Taking Cuba in some form, yeah. 0.88

00:49:00.000 Taking Cuba. 0.96

00:49:01.000 I mean, whether I free it, take it, I think I could do anything I want with it.

00:49:07.000 You want to know the truth?

00:49:08.000 They're a very weakened nation.

00:49:12.000 Free it, take it.

00:49:14.000 Do anything I want.

00:49:16.000 Got to enjoy it, man.

00:49:17.000 Secretary 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.

00:49:24.000 Here was the Secretary of State.

00:49:27.000 But the bottom line is their economy doesn't work.

00:49:29.000 It's a non-functional economy.

00:49:30.000 It's an economy that has survived.

00:49:34.000 That revolution, it's not even a revolution, that thing they have, has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela.

00:49:40.000 They don't get subsidies anymore.

00:49:41.000 So they're in a lot of trouble.

00:49:42.000 And the people in charge are, they don't know how to fix it.

00:49:45.000 So they have to get new people in charge.

00:49:49.000 So why would this be great for America?

00:49:51.000 Well, 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.

00:49:59.000 Here's Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Americas, Joseph Humeier, yesterday explaining.

00:50:05.000 Cuba historically has been one of the strongest intelligence adversaries that we've had in the United States.

00:50:11.000 They not just have penetrated our government, they penetrated other governments, partner governments throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

00:50:16.000 And 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.

00:50:28.000 Well, the Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canal says he is already in discussions with the United States.

00:50:32.000 According 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.

00:50:44.000 Quote: The discussions were based on respect for the political systems of both countries, sovereignty, and our government's self-determination.

00:50:50.000 By the Calci odds right now on Miguel Diaz-Canal leaving office before May are now upwards of 50%, 50%.

00:51:00.000 Before September, 71%.

00:51:02.000 So, yeah, Cuba's regime looks like it is about to fall.

00:51:05.000 The 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.

00:51:13.000 That's according to Cubalex, a U.S.-based human rights organization that monitors conditions on the ground.

00:51:20.000 Well, Diaz is pretending not to go quietly now.

00:51:23.000 He's very, very angry at the United States for cutting his line to his Venezuelan sugar daddy.

00:51:28.000 So 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.

00:51:37.000 The harsh limitations of the weakened economy that they have attacked and sought to isolate for more than six decades.

00:51:42.000 They 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. 0.61

00:51:50.000 Only in this way can the fierce economic war be explained, which is applied as collective punishment against the entire people.

00:51:55.000 In the face of the worst scenario, Cuba is accompanied by a certainty. 1.00

00:51:59.000 Any external aggressor will clash with an impregnable resistance.

00:52:03.000 Eh, dude.

00:52:04.000 Uh-huh.

00:52:04.000 Yeah, sure.

00:52:06.000 Yeah, man.

00:52:07.000 I assume that President Trump will presumably reply with just laughter, I assume.

00:52:13.000 Naturally, leave it to the Democratic Socialists of America to now try to save the Cuban regime.

00:52:18.000 How are these people not being arrested already, given their treasonous support for a communist regime abroad?

00:52:24.000 City 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.

00:52:37.000 Coacher Claire Bleckman said, quote, it is not very legal to send money directly to Cuba.

00:52:41.000 So this is what we have to do.

00:52:43.000 We have to send money to DSA, and then we have to buy stuff and then send stuff to Cuba.

00:52:47.000 I feel like that's kind of an admission that you are breaking the law a little.

00:52:50.000 Well, the DSA is going to head to Cuba for its own Gaza flotilla.

00:52:55.000 We can only hope to see Greta Thunberg and her Lord Farquad haircut aboard. 0.73

00:53:00.000 This is an image of their.

00:53:02.000 We are going to Cuba.

00:53:04.000 Wow.

00:53:05.000 You're going to do it, guys.

00:53:06.000 You're going to save it.

00:53:07.000 And apparently, they will be joined by limousine socialist Hassan Piker, yet another millionaire streamer who zaps his dog and cosplays as a Maoist.

00:53:16.000 So he is joining.

00:53:18.000 He's going to Cuba.

00:53:19.000 He's also looking strangely bored by the whole endeavor.

00:53:22.000 Well, 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.

00:53:33.000 Joining us on the line to discuss all this is Daniel DiMartino, born and raised in Venezuela.

00:53:38.000 DiMartino has lived through the consequences of socialism at firsthand.

00:53:40.000 He's a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

00:53:42.000 Daniel, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:53:43.000 I really appreciate it.

00:53:45.000 Thanks for having me, Ben.

00:53:48.000 So, Daniel, what are you hearing from the island about the status of the government?

00:53:51.000 Obviously, those Calci markets are suggesting, Calcius is one of our sponsors.

00:53:54.000 They're suggesting that Diaz-Canal and this government are on their way out.

00:53:58.000 What do you think are the next steps there?

00:54:00.000 Well, I think that the main time constraint happening now is the war in Iran, right?

00:54:06.000 Even President Trump said it a few days ago that after we finish in Iran, he said we're going for Cuba.

00:54:11.000 And the truth is, the U.S. used to have the USS GL4, the aircraft carrier in the Caribbean for the Venezuela operation.

00:54:18.000 And then they had to move it to the Mediterranean Sea because of the operation in Iran.

00:54:22.000 So 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.

00:54:29.000 We don't definitely don't want to end up like the Ayatollah. 0.98

00:54:32.000 So we're just going to unilaterally surrender and do economic reforms.

00:54:35.000 They just attempted that, right?

00:54:37.000 I mean, the Castros announced that they are allowing Cubans abroad to invest.

00:54:41.000 That's obviously not enough.

00:54:42.000 And which Cuban abroad is going to invest while the regime is still in power?

00:54:47.000 So I think they're going to give in.

00:54:51.000 What do you think giving in looks like?

00:54:52.000 Is that a transitional dictatorship until a democracy is established?

00:54:57.000 How exactly do we plan to effectuate what would be a regime replacement in Cuba?

00:55:03.000 Yeah, Cuba is much more complicated than Venezuela, I would say, because Cuba, unlike Venezuela, doesn't have an active organized opposition movement inside.

00:55:11.000 Like there's nobody who is a clear leader against the Castro regime inside Cuba, only people outside.

00:55:17.000 They have been very effective at pushing them out.

00:55:19.000 And so I think that this is going to remain a dictatorship.

00:55:22.000 They're just going to open up economically, which is going to be good for the Cuban people.

00:55:26.000 But the question is: can the Trump administration even force the Cubans to create an infrastructure to even hold elections?

00:55:35.000 They don't even hold elections.

00:55:36.000 Like their elections are not even like the Venezuelan RIP ones.

00:55:39.000 They just have one candidate.

00:55:40.000 There's not even an opposition that is allowed.

00:55:43.000 So it's a much more complicated issue.

00:55:47.000 So 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.

00:55:54.000 Are 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?

00:56:06.000 And 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?

00:56:16.000 Yes, 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.

00:56:29.000 Because 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?

00:56:45.000 Do we really think they have the guts to do what he did on Iran?

00:56:48.000 Trump has really been a unique president, both in unpredictability and deterrence effect because of the things he's proven.

00:56:55.000 And 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.

00:57:02.000 That's what's going to make Trump one of the best presidents in American history.

00:57:07.000 He'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.

00:57:20.000 And it was me.

00:57:21.000 It's like the new Ronald Reagan moment that he has a chance to do.

00:57:25.000 That's Daniel T. Martino from the Manhattan Institute.

00:57:27.000 Daniel, really appreciate the time as well as the insight.

00:57:31.000 Thank you, Ben.

00:57:34.000 All righty, folks.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - March 18, 2026

The END of MAGA?

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