The Ben Shapiro Show - The War That Wasn’t | Ep. 927

00:00:00.000 Iran launches ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases with U.S.

00:00:03.000 soldiers, President Trump makes a statement, and the media lose their ever-loving minds.

00:00:06.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:07.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:09.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:16.000 It's how my listeners secure their internet.

00:00:17.000 Join them at expressvpn.com.

00:00:20.000 With all of the craziness going on in the world, ranging from the situation with Iran to impeachment, you may have noticed that prices of gold have been spiking.

00:00:27.000 Now might be a good time to diversify your assets at least a little bit.

00:00:30.000 And you know who I trust when it comes to diversification of assets.

00:00:33.000 Of course, I'm talking about my friends over at Birchgold.

00:00:36.000 If you haven't yet taken the first step of requesting a free information kit on gold, Go ahead and do it.

00:00:40.000 If you haven't converted a portion of your eligible IRA or 401k to an IRA in precious metals, ask all your questions to my friends over at Birchgold.

00:00:47.000 Birchgold will go to work and make things super simple for you.

00:00:49.000 No obligation.

00:00:50.000 You have nothing to lose to take that first step again.

00:00:52.000 When there is a lot of chaos in the world, people tend to rush to precious metals because they've never been worth zero and they are a good hedge against inflation and uncertainty in the market.

00:01:00.000 Text BEN to 474747 during the month of January.

00:01:04.000 When you open an IRA in Precious Metals, you'll get a signed copy of my book, The Right Side of History, for free.

00:01:08.000 Again, you have to text Ben to 474747 to get a signed copy of my book, The Right Side of History, along with all those other conditions.

00:01:15.000 Text Ben to 474747.

00:01:18.000 Again, this would be a good time to think about diversifying because the world is growing chaotic.

00:01:22.000 Birch Gold can help you make sense of it.

00:01:23.000 Text Ben to 474747.

00:01:26.000 Well, the president of the United States just exited the stage after making a statement over the situation in Iraq and Iran.

00:01:33.000 I'm going to give you the background and then we'll inform you as to what President Trump just had to say and what it actually meant.

00:01:38.000 His speech was actually quite good.

00:01:40.000 The president's speech was given from a teleprompter.

00:01:42.000 He did not take any questions.

00:01:43.000 It lasted about 10 minutes and he said everything that needed to be said.

00:01:47.000 We'll go through his actual statement in a second.

00:01:49.000 First, the event of last night, which threw everybody into a panic, at least momentarily.

00:01:52.000 So after the killing of Qasem Soleimani, which followed hard on the attempt to burn down the United States embassy in Baghdad, an act that was coordinated and ordered by Soleimani.

00:02:01.000 And Soleimani had then come to Iraq to coordinate further attacks.

00:02:05.000 The fact that the the fact that the Iranians were going to respond after Soleimani was killed, that was inevitable. 0.97

00:02:13.000 Iran was going to do it. 0.98

00:02:14.000 Everybody knew this was coming.

00:02:15.000 And so the President of the United States orders Soleimani taken out.

00:02:19.000 He is taken out.

00:02:19.000 So is the head of the popular local militia front, which was responsible for the Baghdad embassy attack.

00:02:27.000 Trump orders the death of Soleimani, and we get these theatrics, these hysterics from the Iranian government, the Ayatollah Khamenei standing in front of the box containing the remains of Soleimani and weeping.

00:02:38.000 We get hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people in the streets in Tehran.

00:02:43.000 And we get the media losing their minds over all of this.

00:02:46.000 Obviously, this is going to be the prelude for war. 0.86

00:02:48.000 And all of the last 48 hours has been the media basically suggesting that World War III was imminent.

00:02:53.000 Well, last night the missiles started flying and the media declared, in the moment, that World War III was upon us.

00:02:59.000 That World War III was upon us.

00:03:00.000 So what exactly happened?

00:03:01.000 According to the UK Daily Mail, Iran's quote-unquote crushing revenge strike against the U.S.

00:03:05.000 largely failed to materialize Wednesday as the country launched 22 missiles against two American air bases in Iraq, but failed to kill a single soldier.

00:03:13.000 Well, it appears some missiles failed to explode on impact or missed their targets altogether.

00:03:17.000 and European intelligence sources said the regime deliberately pulled its punches for fear of provoking a disproportionate response threatened by President Trump.

00:03:17.000 U.S.

00:03:24.000 In other words, these missiles were flying and the immediate response of the media were, well, here it comes. 0.60

00:03:28.000 Now the Iranians are mad. 1.00

00:03:29.000 Now the Iranians are going to go full out. 1.00

00:03:31.000 Well, the Iranians have been engaging in low-level rocket attacks for a very long time.

00:03:35.000 They've been doing it for literally a year.

00:03:37.000 And they've been engaging in attacks on American soldiers going back decades.

00:03:40.000 But this was something that was at least a little bit new.

00:03:42.000 It was a ballistic missile attack from Iranian soil into Iraq proper.

00:03:46.000 Now, that is an act of war on Iraq. 0.61

00:03:48.000 I mean, the Iranians going into Iraq without permission and attacking Iraqi bases. 0.94

00:03:52.000 Remember, these are not U.S.

00:03:53.000 bases.

00:03:53.000 These are Iraqi bases where there are coalition soldiers.

00:03:56.000 That is a distinction that makes a difference.

00:03:58.000 This was Iran attacking Iraq. 0.85

00:04:01.000 That was an act of war against Iraq and against U.S.

00:04:04.000 soldiers.

00:04:04.000 So in that sense, this was an escalation.

00:04:06.000 But the fact that nobody was killed, that nobody was harmed, that no casualties happened, that basically this appeared to be Iran signaling to its people that it was willing to respond but not willing to go particularly far in order to do so. 0.51

00:04:16.000 Basically, Iran had been convinced by Trump killing Soleimani that if they went hard back at Trump, that Trump would do something really escalatory.

00:04:24.000 If they had hit a U.S. 0.84

00:04:25.000 airbase without any sort of warning, for example, and they killed some American soldiers, the likelihood that Trump would have then sunk their navy was incredibly high.

00:04:32.000 So if you look at Iran's strategic vulnerability in the region, their ballistic missiles are not supremely vulnerable because a lot of them are on mobile launchers.

00:04:39.000 They have lots and lots of ballistic missiles that have been developed over the years, and also with the help of Obama-era cash.

00:04:45.000 Because remember, the Obama administration shipped $1.8 billion in cash to the Iranians, allowed their $150 billion of withheld assets to flow back into Iran, tried to open the world economy to Iran.

00:04:56.000 And Iran was promptly using all of that money in order to build up its conventional assets, its military, its terrorist groups all around the Middle East, stationed around the Middle East.

00:05:04.000 They're building up their ballistic missiles.

00:05:05.000 So Iran really has sort of three assets that were at its disposal.

00:05:08.000 One is its ballistic, well, four, their ballistic missile system.

00:05:12.000 Their ballistic missile system, they are not supremely sophisticated ballistic missiles, but they are ballistic missiles, and they are widespread, and they are on mobile launchers, many of them.

00:05:19.000 Those would be a little bit hard to take out.

00:05:21.000 The second asset is the enormous Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which is a very, very large standing army, but is a conventional army and would have to cross over conventional borders, which would precipitate actual international action against Iran.

00:05:35.000 Then, there was the Iranian Navy, which is the weak spot for Iran because their navy is pretty rinky-dink. 0.74

00:05:40.000 They have a few submarines that might be somewhat hard to locate, but their surface ships are really not a tremendous threat, especially if they don't get to take the first punch.

00:05:47.000 And then they have their terrorist groups around the region, All of whom are not really prepared for war.

00:05:52.000 Last night, Iran threatened that if there was some sort of retaliation from the United States, that they would activate their terrorist groups like Hezbollah against Israel.

00:05:59.000 Hezbollah does not want to go to war with Israel right now because Israel's military has been prepping for this for years, really since the 2007 Southern Lebanon War.

00:06:07.000 And so Israel would go in and wipe them off the map pretty quickly. 0.97

00:06:10.000 So Iran is in a strategically vulnerable position.

00:06:13.000 Their economy is incredibly weak.

00:06:15.000 And so they did sort of the minimum of what they had to do to signal to their people that they're mad.

00:06:19.000 But let's put it this way.

00:06:20.000 Soleimani was a top leader in Iran.

00:06:22.000 He was also their terror leader.

00:06:24.000 He was the number two.

00:06:25.000 He was widely perceived to be possibly the successor to the number one, Ayatollah Khamenei.

00:06:30.000 Soleimani gets taken out. 0.99

00:06:31.000 Imagine, in the United States, the equivalent.

00:06:33.000 Let's imagine that a foreign actor takes out the Vice President of the United States, the Secretary of Defense, the head of the CIA, and the head of the FBI all in one. 0.59

00:06:40.000 Because that is basically what Soleimani was.

00:06:42.000 And imagine that then there were pictures on television of millions of American mourners in the streets.

00:06:47.000 And imagine there are pictures of the President of the United States openly weeping over the corpse of this person, or these people.

00:06:54.000 And then imagine that the response was, we fired 22 ballistic missiles, all of which failed to kill anybody who had actually ordered the attack, or any of the soldiers on the other side.

00:07:03.000 The American people would rightly consider that to be an act of weakness.

00:07:06.000 Well, what happened last night was an act of weakness, and it is now apparent, it's becoming more and more apparent, that it was a deliberate act of weakness because the Iranian government did not want to provoke a serious response from the United States.

00:07:17.000 As the Daily Mail is reporting, Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi said that Iran warned him about the attack on the Ain al-Assad and Erbil airbases an hour before they took place.

00:07:27.000 And then, Abdul Mahdi turned around and he warned Iraqi and U.S.

00:07:31.000 troops to take shelter.

00:07:33.000 Finland and Lithuania said they were also informed to get their soldiers to safety.

00:07:36.000 In other words, this was staged.

00:07:38.000 Okay, this is what it sounds like.

00:07:39.000 It sounds like this was staged.

00:07:40.000 It sounds like the Iranian government basically signaled to the Iraqis, listen, we gotta do something because otherwise it looks like our regime is so weak that we can't even Retaliate in response to the killing of one of our leaders.

00:07:51.000 And so here's what we're gonna do.

00:07:52.000 We're gonna fire some ballistic missiles.

00:07:54.000 It'll be a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

00:07:56.000 Because we're warning you beforehand to get your people out.

00:07:58.000 So you get your people out, nobody gets killed.

00:08:00.000 We get to claim that we took a crushing response to all of this.

00:08:03.000 And then you get to basically claim that we didn't do any damage and everybody goes home happy.

00:08:07.000 And that is effectively what happened last night.

00:08:11.000 Now, the Iranian government played it up to the hilt, and one Iranian official, the Iranians really did play this up.

00:08:17.000 The Iranian state TV was reporting that Ayatollah Khamenei was coordinating the attacks himself, which was supposed to be an indicator of the seriousness of the Iranian response to his MSNBC reporting on that last night.

00:08:30.000 We have reports as well from the IRGC that Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader of this country, was in the control room coordinating all of these attacks.

00:08:42.000 They're also reporting that Iran's air force has been deployed and they are ready to intercept any attacks from the United States.

00:08:52.000 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei then described the attacks as a quote slap in the face of America, but he admitted they were not enough to avenge Soleimani.

00:08:58.000 He did a televised address where he promised Iranians the true revenge would be kicking U.S. forces out of the Middle East altogether.

00:09:03.000 The problem is that the strategy he just pursued actually made that more difficult.

00:09:06.000 So the media were claiming yesterday and basically since Soleimani's killing that killing Soleimani was going to prompt Iraq to throw the U.S. out.

00:09:13.000 out of Iraq.

00:09:13.000 That is just sheer nonsense.

00:09:15.000 They were proclaiming that the parliament had voted that the United States should leave.

00:09:18.000 There's only one problem.

00:09:19.000 Only the cabinet can ask the United States to leave.

00:09:21.000 There is no cabinet in Iraq because the acting prime minister has been under significant pressure to step down specifically because Iran was dominating his foreign policy.

00:09:30.000 In fact, the vote that was taken in the Iraqi parliament was taken with barely a quorum available.

00:09:35.000 Every Sunni legislator, every Kurdish legislator boycotted the vote and the vote was non-binding.

00:09:41.000 So none of that made any sense.

00:09:42.000 And then Iran actually made its case worse yesterday because Iran is claiming that the United States should pull out of Iraq.

00:09:48.000 And then saying that the Iraqi people want the United States out of Iraq?

00:09:51.000 There's only one problem with that.

00:09:53.000 Everybody in Iraq who is not Shia knows that the minute the United States is out, Iran rushes in and takes over every bit of the government. 0.93

00:10:00.000 They understand that.

00:10:01.000 So, and having Iranian missiles flying into Iraqi territory trying to kill Iraqi citizens is not a very good way of showing that you don't have territorial aspirations to take over Iraq.

00:10:11.000 So actually, this is pretty counterproductive for the Ayatollahs.

00:10:14.000 They were put between a rock and a hard place.

00:10:16.000 They were sort of boxed in here.

00:10:17.000 And so they lashed out in the most minimalist way they could, deliberately, apparently, avoiding casualties so that they couldn't give Trump an excuse to go after their navy or go after any of their important military sites.

00:10:29.000 Now, the media last night played this as an act of sheer panic.

00:10:31.000 World War III is upon us!

00:10:32.000 It's a massive war.

00:10:33.000 I've been saying for weeks, when no one wants to go to war, nobody's going to war.

00:10:37.000 The Iranians don't want war because if there's a war, Ayatollah Khamenei, that dude is dead.

00:10:41.000 Okay?

00:10:41.000 If there's a war, the Iranian Navy is gone.

00:10:44.000 If there is a war, the United States military is the best war-making force in the history of the world.

00:10:48.000 The United States doesn't want war because we don't want to occupy anybody, because we are not interested in a protracted conflict.

00:10:53.000 No one, no one, from Tucker Carlson to Donald Trump to me, nobody wants war with Iran.

00:10:58.000 No one is interested in a full-scale military conflict with Iran.

00:11:01.000 But that means there's not going to be a full-scale military conflict with Iran.

00:11:04.000 And this entire situation does give the lie to the notion pushed by the media and pushed by the Obama administration that the only two alternatives were appeasing the Iranians or going to full-scale war with them.

00:11:14.000 That was a lie from the outset.

00:11:15.000 It is a lie today.

00:11:16.000 The two choices were not signing giant checks to a terrorist entity or going to complete war with the terrorist entity.

00:11:22.000 One of the possibilities is deterrence.

00:11:24.000 And that's what Trump was reestablishing here and successfully reestablished here.

00:11:29.000 Iranian television tried to claim that 80 American tourists were killed, but that figure was quickly rubbished by Iraqi and U.S.

00:11:34.000 officials.

00:11:35.000 According to the Daily Mail, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said they show what we didn't retreat in the face of America.

00:11:41.000 This was an attempt to save face.

00:11:42.000 He says, if America has committed a crime, it should know that it will receive a decisive response.

00:11:46.000 If they are wise, they won't take any other action at this juncture.

00:11:48.000 So basically they're trying to claim now that they have somehow, that they are the barking dog and they have scared away the United States.

00:11:54.000 Absolute sheer nonsense. 0.98

00:11:55.000 They understood that if they killed an American, Trump was going to unleash the beast. 0.96

00:11:58.000 And so they called in advance the Iraqi government and warned them what was coming.

00:12:04.000 Hey, by the way, there were a bunch of weird incidents that happened last night.

00:12:07.000 There were a couple earthquakes near an Iranian nuclear facility.

00:12:11.000 Don't know what that means.

00:12:12.000 We also don't know what it means that the Ukrainian Airlines Boeing 737 caught fire and crashed near Tehran, killing all 177 passengers and crew, including 63 Canadians and 3 Britons.

00:12:22.000 It is unclear whether, in fact, that plane was shot down, and the black box is not being Is not being released at this point.

00:12:28.000 President Trump, for his part, credits the early warning system that had been established for preventing casualties.

00:12:35.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

00:12:37.000 First, let us talk about the fact that you need to protect yourself online.

00:12:42.000 So right now we are seeing a widespread spate, like a huge spate, of attacks globally.

00:12:47.000 By the Iranian government against particular websites.

00:12:50.000 And they've hacked like actual private people before they hacked Sheldon Adelson a few years back.

00:12:54.000 You see hackers all the time looking for information.

00:12:56.000 And it's not just government.

00:12:58.000 Sometimes it's big tech just monitoring you or it's the government checking into you.

00:13:01.000 And sometimes it's hackers who just want your credit card information.

00:13:03.000 You ought to be protecting yourself online.

00:13:06.000 You must protect yourself no matter whether you're famous or whether or not whether you're a target of a foreign country. 0.72

00:13:09.000 or whether you are not.

00:13:10.000 ExpressVPN is the best way to do this.

00:13:12.000 ExpressVPN does not log your data.

00:13:14.000 There are lots of really cheap or free VPNs that actually make money.

00:13:16.000 By selling the data they say they are protecting to ad companies, ExpressVPN has developed a technology called Trusted Server that makes it impossible for their servers to log any of your information.

00:13:25.000 They are fast, it's easy, You install it on your computer with one click.

00:13:29.000 It is now running in the background of your computer.

00:13:31.000 There's a reason the TechRadar, the Verge, CNET, and many other tech experts rate ExpressVPN the number one VPN in the world.

00:13:37.000 I love ExpressVPN.

00:13:38.000 I've been using it for years.

00:13:39.000 I want to protect myself.

00:13:40.000 You should protect yourself as well.

00:13:41.000 Use my link, expressvpn.com slash ben today.

00:13:44.000 Get an extra three months for free on a one-year package.

00:13:47.000 That is expressvpn.com slash ben.

00:13:49.000 Again, visit expressvpn.com slash ben to learn more.

00:13:52.000 That's expressvpn.com slash ben.

00:13:54.000 So, according to a U.S.

00:13:56.000 official telling USA Today, U.S.

00:13:57.000 officials did have advanced warning of Iran's missile assault that damaged two Iraqi bases housing U.S.

00:14:02.000 and coalition forces.

00:14:04.000 A hangar at Al-Asad, a sprawling complex 100 miles west of Baghdad that houses about 1,500 coalition forces, was severely damaged, according to a U.S.

00:14:11.000 official speaking to USA Today on the condition of anonymity.

00:14:14.000 The official added the early warning systems gave U.S.

00:14:16.000 forces advanced knowledge that the missiles had been launched.

00:14:19.000 It's also possible, by the way.

00:14:20.000 We're hearing about the early warning system to cover up for the fact that Iran actually created a back channel to the Iraqi government saying that they were not going to kill Americans.

00:14:29.000 So get your guys out right now because the last thing we want is a full-scale war with you guys.

00:14:33.000 We've now saved face.

00:14:34.000 You get to claim that we were a failure.

00:14:35.000 We all go home happy and then maybe we work toward negotiating a new agreement.

00:14:39.000 The fact is that what Iran just did forces the Europeans into a bad situation. 0.89

00:14:43.000 The Europeans would love nothing better than to go back to the failed JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, that was basically an act of appeasement. 0.91

00:14:51.000 By the way, that sucker was 10 years long.

00:14:53.000 That was set to expire, like, very, very soon. 0.86

00:14:56.000 It was signed in 2013.

00:14:57.000 So it's been a while.

00:14:59.000 And that thing was already going to be defunct and Iran was going to start its nuclear testing, its nuclear missiles program, its nuclear weapons program, right back up in the next couple of years, no matter what.

00:15:08.000 So Trump Saying that we need to cut a new deal with Iran and that has to be done on the basis of no more terrorism, no more ballistic missile testing, no more nuclear technology.

00:15:17.000 That is exactly right.

00:15:18.000 One of the things you keep hearing from the media is that the Iran nuclear deal was keeping Iran in check?

00:15:22.000 Well, only with regard to their nuclear program at best.

00:15:25.000 At best.

00:15:26.000 In reality, what it was doing was bribing them with the possibility of greater regional power and economic strength so that one day they could move forward with an actual nuclear weapons program. 0.96

00:15:36.000 That is why the Democratic takes on all of this are so silly.

00:15:41.000 So, in the middle of all of this, the Iranians basically backed down. 0.94

00:15:46.000 Iran issued all of these sort of empty warnings.

00:15:47.000 One of their Iranian leaders tweeted a picture of the Iranian flag.

00:15:50.000 supposedly sort of the response to Trump tweeting a picture of the American flag as he treated the Iranian flag because, wow, look at us.

00:15:59.000 We're just like the United States. 0.99

00:16:00.000 Yeah, except for the fact that you shot a bunch of missiles and didn't even hit a camel in the ass. 0.99

00:16:04.000 So there's that. 0.99

00:16:05.000 And then Iran issued further warning saying they're going to attack Dubai, that they were going to attack Haifa in Israel, Tel Aviv, which, of course, is just silly talk.

00:16:13.000 And then Javad Zarif, basically the foreign minister who was talking tough just a few moments ago, all of a sudden he is backing down on Twitter.

00:16:20.000 He said, Iran took and concluded proportionate measures in self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter targeting base from which cowardly armed attack against our citizens and senior officials were launched.

00:16:30.000 It wasn't against your citizens.

00:16:32.000 You literally had terrorists in the country of Iraq, a foreign country where you were facilitating terror attacks.

00:16:37.000 We do not seek escalation or war, but we'll defend ourselves against any aggression.

00:16:40.000 That was Zarif basically saying, we're done now.

00:16:43.000 We're done.

00:16:44.000 We're finished at this point.

00:16:45.000 And Trump then tweeted out, OK, fine.

00:16:46.000 You want to be done?

00:16:47.000 I guess we're done.

00:16:48.000 And he tweeted out last night, all is well.

00:16:50.000 Missiles launched from Iran at two military bases located in Iraq.

00:16:53.000 Assessment of casualties and damages taking place now.

00:16:55.000 So far, so good.

00:16:56.000 We have the most powerful and well-equipped military anywhere in the world by far.

00:17:00.000 I will be making a statement tomorrow morning.

00:17:03.000 Then, this morning, President Trump actually made his statement.

00:17:05.000 That's why we delayed the onset of the show this morning.

00:17:08.000 He opened by walking out, flanked by his national security team, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as his Secretary of Defense and Vice President.

00:17:15.000 And he said, right off the bat, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.

00:17:18.000 Like, this was his first statement.

00:17:20.000 The only difference between Trump and Obama is that Trump actually means it.

00:17:24.000 See, the thing is that if you say, never, what that means is beyond your term.

00:17:27.000 Obama was fine with Iran gaining a nuclear weapon.

00:17:29.000 He just wanted them to do it a few years down the line when he thought he couldn't be blamed for it, and he sort of wanted to appease them until that time.

00:17:36.000 Trump actually means this thing, and he showed it by killing Soleimani.

00:17:39.000 Here is President Trump this morning.

00:17:43.000 As long as I'm president of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

00:17:52.000 Good morning.

00:17:54.000 I'm pleased to inform you The American people should be extremely grateful and happy.

00:18:03.000 No Americans were harmed in last night's attack by the Iranian regime.

00:18:12.000 We suffered no casualties.

00:18:14.000 All of our soldiers are safe.

00:18:17.000 And only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases.

00:18:24.000 Our great American forces are prepared for anything.

00:18:28.000 Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world. 0.99

00:18:36.000 That, of course, is exactly true. 0.60

00:18:38.000 The fact that Iran backed off of the signal... Again, when no one wants World War III, World War III ain't happening.

00:18:42.000 Also, worth noting... I mean, this is sort of a didactic point, but it's true.

00:18:47.000 If the United States had actually gone into a shooting war with Iran, that's not World War 3.

00:18:51.000 World War 3 actually would involve coalitions of people siding against the United States.

00:18:54.000 The Russians would not have gotten involved. 0.61

00:18:56.000 The Chinese would not have gotten involved. 0.97

00:18:57.000 It would have been a regional war, more like the Gulf War, the First Gulf War, the Second Gulf War, Vietnam. 0.53

00:19:02.000 It would not have been World War 3.

00:19:03.000 World War 3 actually requires there to be serious risk of heavy American casualties.

00:19:08.000 It requires there to be Many other countries involved.

00:19:10.000 It would have been an actual war between Iran and the United States.

00:19:14.000 There would have been proxy wars between Hezbollah and Israel.

00:19:17.000 None of that is happening.

00:19:18.000 Okay, I'm just making the point that the overblown talk by the media, even in the worst case scenario, was indeed overblown talk by the media, even in the worst case scenario.

00:19:26.000 But nobody even wanted the regional war, right?

00:19:28.000 Nobody was for this.

00:19:29.000 It was so funny watching people in the media, ranging from the sort of isolationist right to the radical left, and the mainstream left, suggesting that there were people inside the administration who were desperate for war.

00:19:38.000 I saw people tweeting last night that John Bolton wanted war.

00:19:41.000 John Bolton, when he was the NSA, wanted something like this. 0.77

00:19:43.000 What he wanted was, we kill off your worst people, and then you end up, in cowardly fashion, you end up Sending us messages to get our people out so that you don't kill our people because you don't want us to break you. 0.89

00:19:57.000 Right? 0.99

00:19:57.000 That's exactly what happened. 0.99

00:19:58.000 President Trump says there will be consequences for the actions of Iran last night, but they're going to come in the economic and diplomatic sphere, which of course is exactly the right move. 1.00

00:20:05.000 The fact is, now, what are the Europeans going to do?

00:20:07.000 Side with the Iranians? 0.98

00:20:08.000 And in fact, it's obvious that that's not what is going to happen.

00:20:12.000 The fact is that the UK has already come out against Iran.

00:20:15.000 Boris Johnson saying the United States has a right to defend its soldiers, saying that he is going to work with President Trump.

00:20:21.000 You're going to see the other Western countries come around on this.

00:20:24.000 Boris Johnson said today that the United States has the right to protect its troops and told Iran to de-escalate.

00:20:30.000 So, this is moving in President Trump's direction.

00:20:32.000 It turns out that deterrence has always been and will continue to be good policy.

00:20:35.000 President Trump announced this morning that there would, in fact, be new sanctions on Iran.

00:20:40.000 And as you'll see, he then urged the Europeans to get on board.

00:20:45.000 As we continue to evaluate options in response to Iranian aggression, the United States will immediately impose additional punishing economic sanctions on the Iranian regime.

00:20:58.000 These powerful sanctions will remain until Iran changes its behavior. 0.95

00:21:06.000 Okay, and then President Trump came out and he suggested that other countries need to pull out of the failed JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, and it's time to actually negotiate a deal that contains Iran and deters Iran. 0.68

00:21:15.000 Again, the biggest problem with the Iranian nuclear deal...

00:21:18.000 It was not with regard to the nuclear program.

00:21:20.000 Yes, it was a problem that the verification procedures, which were heavier than other verification procedures, still were not completely bulletproof.

00:21:27.000 The bigger problem was that it basically just said to Iran, OK, you develop as much as you could possibly want to develop your conventional military, your terrorist branches, your economy, and then in 10 years you can develop a nuke. 0.55

00:21:38.000 That was basically what the JCPOA said.

00:21:40.000 And then you had the Obama team declaring victory.

00:21:43.000 Which, again, is sort of like a person walks into the doctor's office and says, I have cancer, and also I have a cold.

00:21:49.000 And the doctor says, OK, well, here's what we're going to do.

00:21:51.000 Here's some Nyquil.

00:21:52.000 That should take care of some of your cold symptoms.

00:21:54.000 It won't cure the cold, but it'll take care of some of your cold symptoms, put them off for a little bit.

00:21:58.000 And you're fine.

00:21:59.000 Turns out you're fine now.

00:22:00.000 And the person's like, wait, hold on.

00:22:01.000 I also have cancer.

00:22:02.000 And the doctor's like, it doesn't matter.

00:22:03.000 We're not going to ignore the cancer.

00:22:05.000 The fact is that Iran's terrorist threats on the world stage and its growth as a regional power are a significantly greater danger than its mere nuclear program alone. 0.97

00:22:13.000 It's when the nuclear program is attached to a broader terror threat that it becomes a real threat to the world.

00:22:19.000 The Obama administration facilitated the terror threat while, quote unquote, delaying the nuclear program for a certain preset period of time.

00:22:26.000 President Trump says, listen, this deal was bad.

00:22:28.000 It was always bad.

00:22:29.000 In fact, President Trump suggested in this speech correctly that the ballistic missiles that were fired at this Iraqi airbase could have been paid for by Obama cash.

00:22:37.000 Because again, it was the Obama administration stated position that the Iraq that the Iranians could use money from the opened economy and from the United States to build its terror capacity.

00:22:48.000 John Kerry used openly admitted this in March 2016.

00:22:50.000 He said, of course, they're going to use it for terrorism.

00:22:52.000 Sure, they might use it for ballistic missiles.

00:22:54.000 Okay, those ballistic missiles were falling on Iraqi and American troops last night, or would have been if the Iranians didn't warn the Iraqis ahead of time. 0.96

00:23:00.000 Here's President Trump saying other countries need to pull out of this crap deal. 0.54

00:23:05.000 The time has come for the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Russia, and China to recognize this reality. 0.87

00:23:15.000 They must now break away from the remnants of the Iran deal, or JCPOA.

00:23:22.000 And we must all work together toward making a deal with Iran that makes the world a safer and more peaceful place.

00:23:32.000 Okay, that of course is exactly true.

00:23:34.000 That is exactly true.

00:23:35.000 And in a second, we're going to get to President Trump's conclusion of the speech and some of the other stuff that he said during the speech, which is pretty important.

00:23:41.000 Then we'll get to the media response, which again was wildly overblown throughout this.

00:23:44.000 It was just plain bad media coverage.

00:23:46.000 It is obvious that many in the media were rooting for Trump to be humiliated.

00:23:50.000 And that's not really because they love Iran as much as it is because they love Obama. 0.89

00:23:54.000 And they've been trying to justify Obama's garbage foreign policy for a decade at this point.

00:23:58.000 We'll get to more of that in just one second.

00:24:00.000 First, let us talk about the fact That it is the new year, that means that you're going to be sending a lot of business mail.

00:24:04.000 You run a business or you're at home and you're going to be sending birthday gifts.

00:24:08.000 Valentine's Day is coming up.

00:24:09.000 Lots of times you're going to be sending mail.

00:24:11.000 Do you really want to schlep all that stuff over to the post office?

00:24:13.000 Do you want to schlep all that stuff over to the post office or do you want to do all this stuff from the comfort and security of your own home or your own business?

00:24:13.000 Post office is great.

00:24:20.000 Stamps.com brings all the services of the U.S. Postal Service directly to your computer.

00:24:24.000 Whether you're a small office sending invoices or an online seller shipping out products or even a warehouse sending thousands of packages a day, Stamps.com can handle it all with ease.

00:24:32.000 Simply use your computer to print official U.S. postage 24-7 for any letter, any package, any class of mail, anywhere you want to send it.

00:24:38.000 Once your mail is ready, just hand it to your mail carrier or drop it in a mailbox.

00:24:41.000 It is indeed that simple.

00:24:43.000 With stamps.com, you get five cents off every first-class stamp and up to 40% off priority mail.

00:24:47.000 It's actually cheaper than going to the post office.

00:24:49.000 Not to mention, it's a fraction of the cost of those expensive postage meters.

00:24:52.000 Stamps.com, it's a no-brainer.

00:24:53.000 It saves you time, it saves you money.

00:24:54.000 It's no wonder over 700,000 small businesses already use stamps.com.

00:24:58.000 If you value your time and value your money, why wouldn't you use stamps.com?

00:25:01.000 So, head on over to stamps.com, no risk, with my promo code SHAPIRO, you get a special offer that includes a four-week trial, plus free postage and a digital scale, no long-term commitments or contracts, just go to stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the homepage, type in SHAPIRO, that is stamps.com, promo code SHAPIRO, stamps.com, never go to the post office again.

00:25:19.000 Now the way that you know that this whole thing has de-escalated is that the oil prices actually dropped this morning.

00:25:24.000 They had spiked last night in the aftermath of the attack, but More importantly, it was pretty obvious that this was not going to escalate to a giant war.

00:25:31.000 Now, does that mean that Iran isn't going to continue acting out? 0.97

00:25:33.000 American forces in Iraq failed to destroy major energy infrastructure that could have disrupted global crude supply.

00:25:38.000 More importantly, it was pretty obvious that this was not going to escalate to a giant war.

00:25:43.000 Now, does that mean that Iran isn't going to continue acting out? 0.97

00:25:46.000 No, of course they're going to continue acting out in low level terrorist ways.

00:25:49.000 They will plan attacks in the West that they think cannot be traced back to them.

00:25:53.000 This is what they've done.

00:25:53.000 They have a longer time horizon than any president.

00:25:56.000 Every president basically has a four-year time horizon.

00:25:58.000 Iran has a decades-long time horizon, so they can wait a couple of years to quote-unquote retaliate and then claim that the retaliation is in response to Soleimani.

00:26:05.000 So this does not end the Iranian threat by any stretch of the imagination, but we have certainly deterred them from taking overt actions like burning U.S. 0.54

00:26:12.000 embassies.

00:26:13.000 and trying to kill American soldiers, at least under President Trump.

00:26:16.000 Now, President Trump, at the end of his speech this morning, he suggested, listen, now what we would like to do is come back to the table and renegotiate an improved JCPOA, that includes ballistic missile testing, that includes terror funding.

00:26:27.000 He said, listen, this is very easy.

00:26:29.000 You want to have a good future?

00:26:30.000 Here's President Trump talking to the Iranian people directly.

00:26:30.000 Just stop being terrorists.

00:26:33.000 Finally, to the people and leaders of Iran, we want you to have a future and a great future, one that you deserve.

00:26:46.000 One of prosperity at home and harmony with the nations of the world.

00:26:52.000 The United States is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it.

00:26:58.000 I want to thank you and God bless America.

00:27:00.000 Thank you very much.

00:27:01.000 Thank you.

00:27:02.000 So listen, everybody wants to back off right now.

00:27:05.000 The Iranians better back off. 1.00

00:27:06.000 And this is what they know.

00:27:07.000 Again, the greatest indicator that this deterrent act worked is that the Iranians were notifying the Iraqis that the missiles were coming and that the United States and the Iraqis were able to get out of the way, let Iran save face. 0.81

00:27:16.000 The Iranians, again, after all of that dog and pony show, after the entire millions in the street outrage, people beating at their breasts, gnashing, wailing of teeth, sackcloth and ashes, the Ayatollah standing over the coffin of Soleimani and weeping his eyes out, the Ayatollah in the command center directing the attacks. 0.89

00:27:33.000 It turns out that this is it.

00:27:35.000 If this is it, that's a huge win for Trump.

00:27:37.000 Huge win for Trump.

00:27:38.000 Huge win for the United States.

00:27:39.000 Deterrence re-established, at least at a very baseline level.

00:27:42.000 It doesn't mean this is the end of the battle.

00:27:43.000 It does mean that deterrence is a thing again.

00:27:46.000 President Trump then re-upped the game, right?

00:27:48.000 He gave Iran a face-saving way out. 0.99

00:27:51.000 In this speech, he did not overstate how ineffective the Iranian missile attacks were.

00:27:56.000 He didn't try and shove the Iranians face in it, which would again put the Iranians in the position of having to try to do something else in order to save face with their own population. 0.60

00:28:03.000 He did give them a way out by citing the early warning system.

00:28:06.000 He said Iran does appear to be standing down.

00:28:08.000 He also said people have been tolerating their behavior for decades.

00:28:12.000 Those days are now over.

00:28:14.000 Obviously, the killing of Soleimani says that directly to the Iranians.

00:28:18.000 Trump described Soleimani in full detail.

00:28:20.000 I mean, this was one of his better addresses.

00:28:22.000 It was short.

00:28:22.000 It really was.

00:28:23.000 It was sweet.

00:28:24.000 Yes, it was on teleprompter, but teleprompter Trump can be very good because when he reads the teleprompter properly, that is good.

00:28:30.000 Now, the media will be mocking his pronunciation.

00:28:32.000 Who cares?

00:28:32.000 None of that matters.

00:28:34.000 Barack Obama's pronunciation was impeccable, especially when he said things like Pakistan, but it doesn't matter.

00:28:39.000 The pronunciation doesn't matter.

00:28:40.000 It's the message that matters.

00:28:42.000 Trump said that the failure of the Obama deal Was resulted in additional Iranian aggression and around the Middle East, not just with regard to the United States, which of course is true. 1.00

00:28:53.000 He called on other countries to join the United States.

00:28:55.000 He said he would ask NATO to become more involved in the process, which is perfectly appropriate.

00:29:00.000 And he mentioned the fact that the United States is in very strong position to take really crucial sanctions against the Iranians and listen, we are energy independent. 0.98

00:29:07.000 We do not need Iranian oil.

00:29:09.000 We don't need Middle East oil, period.

00:29:10.000 He said, I've been rebuilding the military.

00:29:12.000 So don't, this was Trump in a rather subtle way, actually saying, just don't F with us guys.

00:29:18.000 Like, don't try this again.

00:29:20.000 Just stop.

00:29:20.000 And now the media's response to all this was just unbelievable last night.

00:29:25.000 Incredible last night.

00:29:26.000 Because the media, their narrative here was not that deterrence was being reestablished.

00:29:30.000 Their narrative is that a madman was leading us to the brink of war with these pitiful Iranians who had of course been converted into the Swiss by the JCPOA. 0.99

00:29:39.000 That the Iranian nuclear deal had magically turned the Ayatollah Khamenei into a Western European leader.

00:29:45.000 Suddenly he was Emmanuel Macron and basically Soleimani was Justin Trudeau, just a little bit more angry with a beard.

00:29:52.000 And that was all because of the JCPOA.

00:29:54.000 Basically, the Iran nuclear deal had defanged the Iranians.

00:29:57.000 And this is why you get Ben Rhodes, who's the architect of the Iran nuclear deal, who lied openly to the American people about the moderation inherent in the Iranian government, that they were about to moderate if only we sent them cash.

00:30:08.000 And last night he was tweeting out things like, this didn't need to happen.

00:30:12.000 You're right, it didn't need to happen.

00:30:13.000 You could have stood up to the Iranians the way Trump did, but instead you decided to pansy out, which is exactly what the Obama administration did. 0.91

00:30:19.000 The media have an interest in upholding that narrative.

00:30:21.000 That is the common thread to the media coverage here.

00:30:23.000 The media narrative is that everything was hunky-dory until Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, at which point Iran randomly started acting nasty again because they hate Trump, and if it weren't for that bad orange man, orange man, bad, bad orange man, then everything would have been hunky-dory in the Middle East. 0.54

00:30:36.000 That ignores the thousands of dead Americans due to Iranian involvement in Iraq, It ignores the hundreds of thousands of dead Muslims in Syria, backed by Soleimani's play in Syria.

00:30:46.000 It ignores the buildup of Hezbollah's military force in the wrecking of Lebanon, which was an Iranian development. 0.83

00:30:52.000 It ignores the fact that Iraq has continued to be a roiling sectarian hellhole because of the Iranian involvement in Iraq.

00:30:58.000 It ignores the attacks on Saudi oil facilities.

00:31:00.000 It ignores the consistent monthly attacks, rocket attacks on American bases.

00:31:05.000 It ignores the attacks on shipping against non-American targets in the Strait of Hormuz.

00:31:10.000 Yeah, the fact is that the Iranians have been pursuing terrorism for literally decades. 0.63

00:31:14.000 That escalated in the immediate aftermath of the JCPOA.

00:31:17.000 Right before Obama left office, the Iranians took a bunch of Americans hostage, right? 0.98

00:31:21.000 They took a bunch of American military men hostage, and then Trump and then Obama had to basically wheedle it out of them.

00:31:27.000 But the narrative again from the media side is that this is all Trumpian craziness.

00:31:31.000 So the problem is this didn't result as they wanted it to result.

00:31:34.000 If the media had its way, we would be at war right now.

00:31:36.000 If the media had its way, Iran would have retaliated much more harshly.

00:31:40.000 They would have killed American soldiers.

00:31:41.000 I'm not saying the American media are rooting for the death of American soldiers.

00:31:44.000 They are rooting for an outcome bad for Trump so that they can prop up their narrative.

00:31:48.000 And if that outcome that is bad for Trump involves more American assets being put in danger, they're happy.

00:31:53.000 You could see the celebration in media last night.

00:31:56.000 The thinly veiled celebration in media last night when Iran started firing the missiles when it turned out it was a big nothing.

00:32:01.000 You can see the disappointment this morning.

00:32:03.000 Lawrence O'Donnell is a perfect example of this.

00:32:04.000 Over at MSNBC, Lawrence O'Donnell actually tweeted, Trump wagged the dog.

00:32:09.000 Now the dog is wagging Trump.

00:32:11.000 Celebrating the idea that Trump had wagged the dog in order to avoid impeachment coverage, but now he had lost control of the situation. 1.00

00:32:18.000 And the media need this narrative, because again, the narrative is that the Iranians were perfectly reasonable, that Obama had made them perfectly reasonable, and that Trump just drove them mad because Trump is a madman. 0.97

00:32:29.000 Jim Acosta over at CNN doing the same routine. 0.99

00:32:31.000 Jim Acosta, who doesn't know his ass from his elbow, suggesting last night, this is what the experts feared. 0.99

00:32:36.000 This is exactly what the experts feared! 0.99

00:32:38.000 Oh my god, Jim Acosta!

00:32:41.000 By the way, ladies, find you somebody who loves you like Jim Acosta loves him some Jim Acosta.

00:32:47.000 The President's attention has been gotten by the Iranians, no question about it. 1.00

00:32:51.000 And getting back to what I was saying earlier, Wolf, this is exactly what many foreign policy and national security analysts feared here in Washington.

00:32:59.000 A lot of Democrats have been talking about over the last 72 hours that the President, by targeting Soleimani, has essentially set this chain of events into motion.

00:33:12.000 And the question is whether the President will be able to get on top of it and handle it.

00:33:16.000 Well, you know, Jim Acosta looking real sad about that.

00:33:19.000 This is what the experts feared.

00:33:20.000 It's what they feared.

00:33:21.000 Chris Hayes over at MSNBC doing the same thing.

00:33:23.000 It's strategically and morally a disaster to go to war with Iran. 0.90

00:33:26.000 No one's going to war with Iran, but you're going to have to explain how it's a moral disaster to kill the leading terrorist in the Middle East responsible for literally tens of thousands of deaths, most of them Muslim. 0.99

00:33:35.000 Before we go, I just want to say this very clearly, that a war with Iran is madness, and it is strategically and morally a disaster in the making, and don't believe anyone who tells you otherwise. 0.95

00:33:45.000 Again, they're setting up that false narrative again and again, that deterrence is full-scale war, and that appeasement is the only solution, because that was the Obama solution, was impeachment.

00:33:54.000 We'll get to more of the media coverage which was egregious, and which, if the media had their way, would have driven Iran to new rounds of actual violence against Americans. 0.67

00:34:02.000 Because the Iranians are watching the media coverage too.

00:34:05.000 And we'll get to more of this in just one second.

00:34:05.000 They are.

00:34:07.000 But first, if you're not already a subscriber, you're really missing out, head on over to dailywire.com slash subscribe.

00:34:12.000 For as little as 10 bucks a month, you get our articles ad free, access to all of our live broadcasts, our full show library, select bonus content, and our exclusive DailyWire app, which is a pretty great feature if you haven't checked it out yet.

00:34:22.000 If you choose the new all-access plan, You'll get all of that, plus the legendary Leftist Tears Tumblr and our brand new Ask Me Anything style discussion feature that allows you to engage our hosts, writers, special guests on a weekly basis.

00:34:31.000 Like tonight, for example, we have a Daily Wire backstage, and then all of the hosts of Daily Wire backstage will be joining you online to ask your questions.

00:34:37.000 So, stop depriving yourself, come join the fun.

00:34:39.000 We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.

00:34:42.000 So it's all about the narrative, all about the narrative.

00:34:49.000 And the narrative absolutely collapsed in on the Democrats last night when the Iranian response was not only ineffectual, but apparently telegraphed to America and her allies to avoid Iran having to up the ante.

00:35:02.000 But if you listen to the way Democrats have been talking about all of this again, it is to preserve the Obama-era narrative, defend the precious, Defend the precious at all costs.

00:35:10.000 Barack Obama is the precious.

00:35:12.000 The Iran nuclear deal is the precious. 0.99

00:35:13.000 It was garbage from day one. 1.00

00:35:15.000 Anyone who watched foreign policy knew that it was garbage from day one. 1.00

00:35:18.000 This was Neville Chamberlain-esque appeasement of the worst regime on planet Earth. 0.99

00:35:22.000 And the fact is that the media are fully invested, and so are the Democrats, in defending that garbage strategy. 0.99

00:35:27.000 And the only way to do that is by declaring that Donald Trump is a madman in trying to re-establish deterrence. 0.94

00:35:32.000 And that's why you see Nancy Pelosi yesterday Lamenting needless American provocation.

00:35:37.000 She tweeted yesterday closely monitoring the situation following bombings targeting US troops in Iraq.

00:35:41.000 By the way, her close monitoring involves her going to some sort of fundraising event, I believe.

00:35:46.000 She said, we must ensure the safety of our service members, including ending needless provocations from the administration and demanding that Iran cease its violence. 0.66

00:35:53.000 America and the world cannot afford war.

00:35:55.000 What would be those needless provocations?

00:35:57.000 Killing the world's leading terrorist Soleimani, a man responsible again for thousands and thousands and thousands of dead Americans.

00:36:03.000 And Iraqis, and Syrians, and Lebanese, and Yemenis, and Iranians, by the way?

00:36:10.000 Would those be the needless provocations?

00:36:11.000 Then there's John Kerry saying, it's a- It's a tragedy that Donald Trump rushed a confrontation.

00:36:17.000 If he had been me, he just would have signed a giant check to the Ayatollahs so they could have used it to kill more people, and then declared that peace had been established. 0.73

00:36:26.000 Here's John Kerry, who's beginning to resemble more and more something from Tales of the Crypt.

00:36:30.000 Here's the former Secretary of State.

00:36:33.000 Now we're seeing the repercussions of going back to where we were when we began the process of trying to eliminate a nuclear weapon.

00:36:41.000 I think it's a tragedy for the world that instead of diplomacy, this administration has rushed to confrontation.

00:36:48.000 And if this develops into a tit-for-tat increased effort, it will become a war That is needless, it didn't have to happen, and it will be a reckless war of choice by the President of the United States.

00:37:04.000 Is the President of the United States responsible for Iran being a terrorist entity for the last 40 years?

00:37:09.000 Also, here are my medals from Vietnam because I'm a terrible person. 0.99

00:37:14.000 John Kerry.

00:37:14.000 That man was the 2004 Democratic nominee.

00:37:16.000 Speaking, by the way, of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Michael Moore was tweeting out this morning pictures from Soleimani's funeral with the tens of thousands of people in the street saying, is there any general in America who would get this kind of adoration? 0.91

00:37:29.000 That guy, Michael Moore, that schmuck who's begging in Farsi, In badly translated Farsi from Google Translate, the Iranians not to hit America just yesterday? 1.00

00:37:38.000 That schmuck was in a presidential box with Jimmy Carter at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. 1.00

00:37:42.000 Talk about a party that's lost its way. 0.99

00:37:44.000 By the way, the idea that Donald Trump rushed to confrontation for a year, he did basically nothing as Iran upped the ante. 0.61

00:37:49.000 He did nothing when there were attacks in the Straits of Hormuz.

00:37:53.000 He did nothing when Saudi oil facilities were targeted.

00:37:55.000 He did nothing when an American drone was shot down.

00:37:58.000 Seriously. 1.00

00:37:59.000 So this idea that Trump is rushing to war is such absolute, absolute crap. 0.99

00:38:03.000 Joe Biden, of course, defending the precious as well. 0.99

00:38:05.000 He has to.

00:38:06.000 He was the vice president when the garbage Iran nuclear deal went forward. 0.79

00:38:09.000 He says, we brought the world together over Iran. 0.87

00:38:12.000 We did.

00:38:12.000 We brought it together over, brought the world together over Iran.

00:38:16.000 If by that you mean this was the Munich agreement, then sure, sure.

00:38:21.000 I don't think the Secretary knows what he's talking about there.

00:38:24.000 Look, what we were able to do is bring together the world to see to it that Iran would not be able to get a nuclear weapon. 0.85

00:38:32.000 Period.

00:38:33.000 Well, I guess the only issue on the table was Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

00:38:37.000 The only issue on the table.

00:38:39.000 Because, again, the Obama administration played doctor who ignores the cancer but treats the cold symptoms.

00:38:44.000 That's exactly what they did.

00:38:45.000 Joe Biden has been wrong on every major foreign policy issue of his entire career.

00:38:49.000 By the way, speaking of Joe Biden, the man can't even keep Iran and Iraq straight.

00:38:52.000 He gave a little speech yesterday in which he was ripping on Trump's Iranian foreign policy, and then he just mixed up Iran and Iraq because the dude is barely functional at this point.

00:39:01.000 The Iran parliament.

00:39:02.000 The Iran parliament voted to eject all Americans and coalition forces from the country.

00:39:09.000 The Iraqi parliament.

00:39:10.000 They're separate countries, you doof.

00:39:12.000 Not only that, the Iraqi parliament did not vote to eject all American forces from the country.

00:39:15.000 They issued a non-binding resolution in which literally half the parliament abstained and walked out because it turns out that Shia-dominated sections of Iraq are not fond of the United States.

00:39:26.000 But the propaganda that is issued, I mean, I've never, whenever, when it comes to issues of foreign policy, the media just become the DNC.

00:39:33.000 They merge.

00:39:34.000 And the media, which sometimes tries to hide it a little bit, it just ends immediately.

00:39:39.000 Anything Democrats do on foreign policy is good.

00:39:40.000 Anything Republicans do is bad.

00:39:42.000 War in Iraq? 0.66

00:39:43.000 Very, very bad.

00:39:44.000 Pursued by a Republican.

00:39:45.000 Pull out from Iraq precipitously, leading to the rise of ISIS?

00:39:48.000 Good.

00:39:48.000 War with regard to Afghanistan?

00:39:50.000 Very bad when a Republican pursues it.

00:39:51.000 When pursued by Barack Obama?

00:39:53.000 Very good.

00:39:53.000 Hitting Soleimani?

00:39:54.000 Very bad.

00:39:55.000 Drone war for years by Barack Obama?

00:39:57.000 Very good.

00:39:59.000 War in Libya, very, very good, because pursued by Barack Obama.

00:40:02.000 Killing of Muammar Gaddafi, very good.

00:40:04.000 Burning of U.S.

00:40:05.000 Embassy in Benghazi, not that big a deal.

00:40:06.000 Burning of U.S.

00:40:07.000 Embassy in Baghdad, very big deal when it's under Trump.

00:40:09.000 I mean, the media just become a mouthpiece for whichever Democrats are in power.

00:40:15.000 That's all that happens here.

00:40:17.000 This is a false narrative.

00:40:18.000 It is a giant gaslighting effort that has been pursued from the very beginning by the Obama administration and now it is carried forward a few years and the media are just parroting this stuff as rote.

00:40:27.000 Senator Tammy Duckworth of Wisconsin, I believe, she came out and she says that what's happening here is that Iran is winning because Iraq is asking us to leave.

00:40:34.000 Again, Iraq did not ask us to leave.

00:40:37.000 The Prime Minister of Iraq did not ask us to leave.

00:40:39.000 The Prime Minister of Iraq is powerless anyway right now.

00:40:41.000 He's the acting Prime Minister because he's been forced into a position of powerlessness by his own population, which feels that he has been kowtowing too much to Iran.

00:40:49.000 Here's Tammy Duckworth just saying something that's absolutely untrue.

00:40:53.000 The incompetence of this president as commander in chief has actually achieved the end goal that Iran wants in the region. 0.61

00:41:00.000 You have to remember, Rachel, that we actually since October have had protests in Iraq against Iranian influence by Iraqi people.

00:41:07.000 You know, within the space of just a couple of days with this poor decision made by this president, we have now turned that around so that now Iraqi, the Iraqi parliament has voted to kick us out of their country.

00:41:19.000 And we have now turned the sentiment into one that is much more pro-Iranian in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East as well.

00:41:25.000 There's always a myth.

00:41:27.000 You think that Sunnis are desperately mourning the loss of Soleimani?

00:41:30.000 You think Sunni Iraqis are desperately mourning the loss of Soleimani?

00:41:33.000 Do you really believe?

00:41:34.000 That the Kurds are desperately mourning the loss of Soleimani?

00:41:38.000 The Kurds who are not exactly friends with the Iranians? 0.98

00:41:40.000 Like, this whole thing is just, it's ridiculous.

00:41:43.000 And it's based on bad information, and the media understanding that most people don't understand anything like the complexities of Middle Eastern politics.

00:41:48.000 Benjamin Haddad, who is the director of the Future Europe Initiative at the Atlantic Council, and no friend to President Trump, he's tweeted out this thread, and this is exactly right.

00:41:58.000 At this time of their presidencies, Trump's two predecessors had started wars in the Middle East.

00:42:03.000 He has not.

00:42:04.000 The apocalyptic commentary of these last few days has completely ignored Trump's famous reluctance to use force, especially for broad value-based objectives.

00:42:10.000 The Soleimani killing was about brutally but punctually re-establishing escalation dominance after Iran stepped up nefarious activities, drone destruction, strike on Saudi Arabia, attack against U.S.

00:42:19.000 embassy, and broke an explicit red line with the killing of an American citizen.

00:42:22.000 The Iranian response, and especially the Zarif tweet, seemed to show that Iran got the message.

00:42:26.000 It had no choice but to respond, but calibrated it in a way that would not cross red lines and communicated that explicitly.

00:42:31.000 He said, I'm seeing commentary saying that Trump is backing down.

00:42:34.000 Actually, the message has been clear.

00:42:35.000 We don't want war, but we're ready for it. 1.00

00:42:37.000 I'm always surprised by the same analyst describing Trump as a calculating, selfish cynic and as an irrational, crazed madman. 1.00

00:42:42.000 You have to choose. 0.99

00:42:43.000 The rest is pretty standard.

00:42:44.000 Peace through strength, more burden sharing from allies in the Middle East, JCPOA, etc.

00:42:49.000 Europeans should 1.

00:42:50.000 Welcome no escalation, 2.

00:42:51.000 Step up troop presence in anti-terror in Middle East, which will also increase their diplomatic weight, and 3.

00:42:56.000 Try to put some meat in Trump's little diplomatic opening, the mention of common interests with Iran against ISIS.

00:43:01.000 Getting questions on the war under the Obama administration, I'm referring to its Libya in 2011.

00:43:04.000 This is exactly right.

00:43:06.000 This is exactly right.

00:43:07.000 People who are not friends with President Trump are acknowledging that Trump gets a win here.

00:43:11.000 Ian Bremmer, who's been no friend to President Trump over at the Eurasia Group, he signaled today that this is a pretty big win for Trump.

00:43:16.000 It is a win for Trump.

00:43:17.000 More importantly than a win for Trump, it's a win for the United States because, again, the lie was always that the rules of politics and international affairs and force in international affairs ceased to apply when Donald Trump became president and when Barack Obama became president.

00:43:30.000 Obama so magically changed the world, magically changed the world, that he could simply sign a check to the Iranians and then they would become wonderful neighbors to everyone around them.

00:43:39.000 It was absolute bullcrap from the very start.

00:43:42.000 And then Trump comes in, he kills Soleimani, he ends the nuclear deal.

00:43:46.000 And then the logic is, well, the world began spinning when Barack Obama was president.

00:43:49.000 He had magically changed- so Trump magically changed them back.

00:43:52.000 Iran has not changed its goals. 0.95

00:43:52.000 Here's the reality. 0.95

00:43:54.000 It has not changed its orientations.

00:43:56.000 It has not changed its tactics.

00:43:57.000 Not one iota, for 40 years, they've been incredibly consistent.

00:44:01.000 That tends to happen in dictatorships.

00:44:03.000 The fact that the media want you to believe that we were on the verge of World War III here, is demonstrative of the fact that either the media don't know what they're talking about or they're malicious, and I happen to think that it is probably the latter.

00:44:12.000 Okay, meanwhile, impeachment is moving forward.

00:44:15.000 Nancy Pelosi is now in a debate with Nancy Pelosi about whether Nancy Pelosi ought to release the impeachment charges to the Senate. 0.99

00:44:21.000 She's being urged by members of the Senate to do so because Mitch McConnell says, I'm gonna continue forward with this impeachment trial without naming witnesses, which of course is exactly what happened under the Clinton administration.

00:44:32.000 During the Clinton administration, during the impeachment hearings about Bill Clinton, The Clinton Senate moved forward with the procedure.

00:44:38.000 They said, we will name the witnesses later.

00:44:40.000 They ended up calling like three witnesses.

00:44:42.000 And that was it.

00:44:43.000 McConnell says, I'm not going to preset the witness list.

00:44:45.000 We have to hear the arguments from the House managers.

00:44:48.000 We also are going to have to hear from the prior witnesses, presumably.

00:44:52.000 And then we'll start talking about what exactly comes next.

00:44:55.000 And this, of course, has driven Pelosi to the point of distraction.

00:44:58.000 She wants John Bolton to be named in the witness list, as though this is going to change things radically.

00:45:03.000 I have serious doubts that that is the case.

00:45:05.000 The New York Times running pieces about Mitch McConnell being afraid of John Bolton.

00:45:09.000 Maybe Mitch McConnell is just not going to cave to Nancy Pelosi's pressure to do an investigation where she refused to.

00:45:13.000 Remember, the House could have called John Bolton and waited on it.

00:45:15.000 They didn't.

00:45:16.000 They didn't because Bolton probably was not going to give them what they wanted.

00:45:19.000 My favorite element of the whole impeachment debacle is the theatrics surrounding it.

00:45:24.000 Yesterday, a bunch of impeachment protesters were walking slowly around the Senate building, wearing shirts that suggested that Trump should be removed.

00:45:35.000 That obviously is going to change things radically. 0.99

00:45:37.000 A bunch of unemployed morons in the middle of the day in Washington, D.C. 1.00

00:45:39.000 walking slowly around the Senate building. 1.00

00:45:42.000 First of all, if I want unemployment, unemployable morons walking around the Senate building, we always have senators. 0.98

00:45:48.000 I actually don't need these people walking around the Senate building in order to push for impeachment. 0.98

00:45:54.000 I do love the one little girl who's been dragged there by her parents, but at least she doesn't have to go to school today.

00:45:58.000 Now that they're walking around the building slowly, under Article 39 of the Constitution, I believe that Trump has automatically been impeached.

00:46:05.000 Nancy Pelosi, is going to have to decide today whether or not she wants to release those charges to the Senate. 1.00

00:46:12.000 McConnell's going to move forward either way.

00:46:14.000 Her bluff has been called.

00:46:15.000 So that basically ends that.

00:46:17.000 Where it moves from here, it's probably a pretty quick disposal.

00:46:20.000 Unless John Bolton says something earth-shattering, which is very doubtful at this point, this whole thing is going to basically amount to nothing, and we'll all move on with our lives.

00:46:31.000 Okay, so we don't actually have time for things I like today, so instead we'll do a very, very brief thing that I hate.

00:46:38.000 Elizabeth Warren appeared on The View.

00:46:40.000 And Elizabeth Warren's appearance on The View was garbage as per her usual arrangement. 1.00

00:46:43.000 First, Meghan McCain had to cudgel her into acknowledging that Soleimani was a terrorist. 0.98

00:46:47.000 And then Elizabeth Warren started just spewing nonsense about Merrick Garland. 0.95

00:46:52.000 So here is Elizabeth Warren explaining that Merrick, that Mitch McConnell's handling of Merrick Garland was unconstitutional, which is amazing coming from a lady proposing a wealth tax that is blatantly unconstitutional. 1.00

00:47:01.000 When President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to be a Supreme Court justice, he, He had a year as a sitting president.

00:47:10.000 And when Mitch McConnell just said, sorry, he's not getting a hearing.

00:47:16.000 We're not even going to meet with him.

00:47:18.000 The Constitution says the president will nominate and the Senate will then offer its advice and consent.

00:47:26.000 And you really want it in a confirmation.

00:47:28.000 We never wrote it with the assumption that, oh, you've got to say within 30 days and then someone's got to come in.

00:47:34.000 That was unconstitutional.

00:47:35.000 Because the assumption wasn't.

00:47:38.000 Apparently it's unconstitutional to fully abide by the Constitution and just say, we're not going to vote on this president's nominee.

00:47:44.000 You don't have to vote on anything.

00:47:46.000 I'm confused.

00:47:47.000 Does Elizabeth Warren think that Nancy Pelosi has a duty to convey the impeachment charges? 1.00

00:47:50.000 Because she does not.

00:47:51.000 She can hold them back.

00:47:52.000 She can do whatever she wants.

00:47:53.000 If the Constitution doesn't say you have to do it, you don't have to do it.

00:47:56.000 Nothing says that the Senate has to accede to a vote on a Democratic nominee if the Senate does not wish to.

00:48:02.000 Alrighty.

00:48:02.000 We'll be back here later today with two additional hours of commentary.

00:48:05.000 Also, we'll be back here tonight with Daily Wire backstage.

00:48:08.000 I'm sure it will be very heavily involved with Iran talk and impeachment talk.

00:48:11.000 And we'll be back here tomorrow.

00:48:12.000 So, so much good stuff.

00:48:13.000 Go over to Daily Wire right now and subscribe if you really want the behind the scenes and all of our content.

00:48:17.000 Otherwise, we'll see you here tomorrow.

00:48:19.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:48:19.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:48:24.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Rebecca Dobkowitz.

00:48:27.000 Directed by Mike Joyner.

00:48:28.000 Executive Producer Jeremy Boring.

00:48:30.000 Senior Producer Jonathan Hay.

00:48:32.000 Supervising Producers Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling.

00:48:34.000 Technical Producer Austin Stevens.

00:48:36.000 Associate Producer Colton Haas.

00:48:38.000 Assistant Director Pavel Lydowsky.

00:48:39.000 Edited by Adam Sajovic.

00:48:41.000 Audio is Mixed by Mike Karmina.

00:48:43.000 Hair and Makeup is by Jesua Olvera.

00:48:44.000 Production Assistant Nick Sheehan.

00:48:46.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.

00:48:48.000 Copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:48:51.000 On The Matt Walsh Show, we're not just discussing politics.

00:48:54.000 We're talking culture, faith, family, all of the things that are really important to you.

The Ben Shapiro Show - January 08, 2020

The War That Wasn’t | Ep. 927

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript