The Ben Shapiro Show - March 16, 2026


What Has Tucker Actually Gotten Himself Into?


Episode Stats

Length

45 minutes

Words per Minute

190.15585

Word Count

8,744

Sentence Count

584

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

43


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 The CIA is spying on Tucker Carlson.
00:00:03.000 You'll never believe the latest.
00:00:04.000 Keep watching and buy some ELP to continue to fund the crusade to stop the Khazarian members of Chabad from launching World War III.
00:00:12.000 That's all the news that's fit to print over the weekend in Podkastan, the fully retarded homeland and headquarters of the grievance party.
00:00:19.000 Preppy Smolette, Tucker Carlson, is now claiming he has been secretly victimized by the CIA, Donald Trump's CIA.
00:00:27.000 We're going to cut through the victimhood schtick in order to ask the only questions that matter.
00:00:30.000 Is this a real scandal, a preemptive spin job, or just another episode of Oppression Olympics performance art?
00:00:36.000 Welcome to The Ben Shapiro Show.
00:00:44.000 Okay, here was Tucker over the weekend making his extremely dubious claim.
00:00:50.000 So the other day I found out that the CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral against me, a crime report, the Department of Justice on the basis of a supposed crime I committed.
00:01:02.000 What's that crime?
00:01:03.000 Well, talking to people in Iran before the war.
00:01:07.000 They read my texts.
00:01:09.000 So the crime under consideration apparently would be the Foreign Agent Act or something like that, acting as an agent of a foreign power.
00:01:18.000 And I don't expect this to go anywhere.
00:01:20.000 I'm not too worried about an actual criminal case against me for a bunch of reasons.
00:01:25.000 One, I'm not an agent of a foreign power.
00:01:29.000 Before we get into the speculation, let's start with the obvious.
00:01:32.000 We have no confirmation of this story from literally anyone.
00:01:36.000 The CIA has not confirmed it.
00:01:38.000 The DOJ has not confirmed it.
00:01:40.000 The NSA has not confirmed it.
00:01:42.000 In fact, the only source for this information is Tucker Carlson.
00:01:46.000 And Tucker has a rich history of making such accusations absent supporting evidence.
00:01:50.000 Back in 2021, he made the same accusation about the National Security Agency.
00:01:56.000 Yesterday, we heard from a whistleblower within the U.S. government who reached out to warn us that the NSA, the National Security Agency, is monitoring our electronic communications and is planning to leak them in an attempt to take the show off the air.
00:02:10.000 The NSA at the time denied the accusation, saying, quote, this allegation is untrue.
00:02:14.000 Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the agency, and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air.
00:02:21.000 Tucker's story never led anywhere, it should be noted.
00:02:24.000 It's quite possible Tucker's texts or communications were caught up in surveillance that the NSA or CIA were doing of foreign agents.
00:02:31.000 If Tucker was just negotiating to have on a foreign figure and aides to that figure were being surveilled, his emails or texts might crop up.
00:02:38.000 That still would not mean that Tucker Carlson was being targeted.
00:02:41.000 Let's also be clear on Tucker Carlson's rights.
00:02:43.000 Tucker has the right to talk to people abroad.
00:02:45.000 Of course, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, that is the act Tucker pretends he doesn't know about, requires people to register as a foreign agent if they act at the, quote, order request or under the direction or control of a foreign principal.
00:02:57.000 So, Tucker talking with the Iranian government or kissing their asses or even spreading their propaganda at his own behest would fall under the protection of the First Amendment.
00:03:06.000 In other words, it is highly unlikely that Tucker Carlson is about to be hit with a farah prosecution.
00:03:11.000 I believe him when he says he's not being paid by outside sources.
00:03:14.000 I think that Tucker Carlson is being truly anti-American all on his own.
00:03:18.000 And now comes the speculation.
00:03:20.000 There are a few possibilities worth examining here.
00:03:23.000 And let me just say right now, we see a lot of people make up news stories.
00:03:26.000 DW remains committed to actually bringing you the truth and analyzing things based on the facts, which is why you should subscribe at dailywire.com slash subscribe.
00:03:34.000 All right, so back to the possibilities.
00:03:35.000 The first is that Tucker Carlson is saying something that isn't true.
00:03:39.000 Tucker Carlson has a very, very long history of lying.
00:03:42.000 He does it on nearly every show, from openly accusing his own political opponents of being in the pay of foreign powers to linking Chabad, again, Chabad.
00:03:50.000 Chabad is this Jewish outreach organization that like wraps filling on people at public events of facilitating World War III from jabbering nonsensically about the supposed Hazarian roots of Jews to simply making up false flag Israeli attacks in Qatar.
00:04:04.000 That last lie was so egregious it had to be formally rebutted by his own friends in Qatar.
00:04:09.000 They literally had to put out a statement saying that actually there were no Mossad cells arrested in Qatar.
00:04:15.000 Now, what's particularly incredible about this story is that in order to believe that Tucker is the victim, you need to believe two things.
00:04:21.000 First, he's guilty of nothing.
00:04:22.000 And second, the Trump administration, again, Trump is the head of the administration, the Trump administration, CIA, which again falls under the purview of Tulsi Gabbard as the DNI.
00:04:33.000 And again, President Trump, the Trump CIA, is targeting him, not the Biden administration, the Trump administration CIA is targeting him.
00:04:40.000 You have to believe not that his texts were incidentally caught up in a sweep of Iranian cell phone data.
00:04:45.000 That, by the way, is what Mark Caputo of Axios is reporting this morning.
00:04:48.000 You have to believe, no, that according to Tucker, he was targeted.
00:04:52.000 That would make the Trump administration, the people he constantly claims he loves, some of the most nefarious abusers of the law in American history.
00:05:00.000 It would put President Trump at the head of a Nixonian conspiracy to silence Tucker Carlson.
00:05:06.000 It would put Trump at the head of that conspiracy, not the Jews, not Chabad, not Mark Levin, not me, Donald J. Trump, who's the head of the executive branch.
00:05:14.000 So, why would Tucker lie about this?
00:05:16.000 Well, because Tucker, like so many in the grievance party, enjoys playing the victim.
00:05:20.000 See, here's the thing: Tucker is not a victim, he is worth tens of millions of dollars at the very least.
00:05:26.000 His show is very successful.
00:05:28.000 He has the ear of the vice president of the United States and, until recently, was a frequent guest at the White House.
00:05:33.000 He may be again.
00:05:34.000 His son is the vice president's deputy press secretary.
00:05:36.000 He owns sweet real estate in Florida and Maine, and now apparently in Qatar.
00:05:40.000 Tucker Carlson is, by pretty much any available metric, one of the least victimized human beings in the history of all humankind.
00:05:48.000 But claiming victimhood gives Tucker Carlson unearned sympathy.
00:05:51.000 You see, he's not just a country club blue-blood silver spoon who went to school in Switzerland and is shocked at the ways of the peasants who shop at Aldi's.
00:05:59.000 He is now the target of the nefarious United States government, and in particular, the CIA.
00:06:06.000 And victimhood, if you're a member of the grievance party, is heroism.
00:06:09.000 So, let's say that Tucker Carlson had his eye on something beyond merely cheap clicks from conspiratorially minded ex-users.
00:06:16.000 Let's say he wanted to build a movement against the Trump administration.
00:06:19.000 Would that square with this accusation?
00:06:21.000 It would, of course.
00:06:22.000 Candace Owens, fresh off of finally solving the mystery of Jack the Ripper by uncovering Benjamin Netanyahu's time machine, a time machine Charlie Crook told her about in her dream, has signed into chat to explain, quote, If they come for Tucker, we ride at dawn.
00:06:35.000 Really, nothing else to say here.
00:06:37.000 We're not doing the Gulags 2.0 with these Bolshevik descendants.
00:06:41.000 By ride at dawn, she means she's going to go on her podcast and say things.
00:06:44.000 Marjorie Taylor Greene, the newest critic of the Trump administration, is openly saying it, quote, If you're noticing Tucker Carlson being attacked from literally every direction of the political machine, it's because they are terrified of him running for president.
00:06:56.000 I assume they hear is President Trump because he would win and they know it.
00:07:01.000 And that's why I'm deeply concerned for my friend Tucker Carlson and his family.
00:07:05.000 These people are vicious and evil and will attempt to destroy anyone and everyone that reveals the truth.
00:07:11.000 They so if Tucker were trying to initiate some sort of anti-Trump movement for 2028, that's a possibility.
00:07:19.000 And again, that possibility would be that Tucker Carlson is lying for political gain.
00:07:23.000 That brings us to the second, not incompatible possibility that he's actually trying to get ahead of a story that might break about his texts.
00:07:30.000 So again, let's assume Tucker is telling the truth about the CIA having his text messages.
00:07:35.000 Not about the CIA targeting him, but about him being caught up in an incidental sweep of Iranian sources.
00:07:40.000 By the way, it is literally the job of the CIA and the NSA to monitor the communications of our enemies.
00:07:48.000 And if Tucker was talking with those enemies, he might be incidentally caught up.
00:07:51.000 That doesn't mean he's being targeted.
00:07:53.000 And again, let's assume that Tucker didn't do anything criminal because the only one telling us he's even under investigation for criminal activity is Tucker Carlson.
00:08:01.000 And because I don't generally assume criminality unless there is evidence of a provable crime.
00:08:07.000 So, if, in fact, the CIA is reading Tucker's texts, why is he talking about it?
00:08:11.000 Well, as anyone in public relations knows, the general rationale for doing what Tucker just did is to get ahead of a story that might be bad.
00:08:18.000 Blame the CIA, impugn the administration, anything in order to avoid the consequences of texts you know are about to break.
00:08:24.000 That's a possibility, too.
00:08:26.000 We'll find out which one or both is true in short order.
00:08:30.000 Or maybe we won't.
00:08:32.000 Maybe this is yet another stupid cycle of Jussie Smollett victimhood from the same grievance party that always traffics in such faux victimhood.
00:08:39.000 The same grievance party that plays host to Candace Owens, who claims the French were trying to kill her.
00:08:45.000 The same grievance party that routinely burnishes low IQ randos on X who post things like, just tweeting now to tell you I didn't kill myself, or I'm not going to die for Israel, as though they're under true murder threat or are about to be drafted by the nefarious Zionist-occupied government.
00:09:01.000 Faux victimhood is the name of the game in the grievance party.
00:09:03.000 Megan Kelly, who has been claiming faux victimhood since her signal failure to defend Erica Kirk against the evil charges of Candace Owens, played that game over the weekend too.
00:09:12.000 Upset that she'd been called out by Mark Levin, she lashed out, claiming that Mark Levin had a micropenis, a truly dazzling feat of intellectual sophistication from a woman who continues to devolve into a 14-year-old mean girl in a 55-year-old woman's body.
00:09:26.000 This prompted President Trump to sign into chat to defend Mark Levin.
00:09:30.000 Quote: Mark Levin, a truly great American patriot, is somewhat under siege by other people with far less intellect, capability, and love for our country.
00:09:36.000 Mark is tough, strong, and brilliant, hence the nickname the great one, conceived by our MAGA friend, the wonderful Sean Hannity, after years of dealing with Mark in legal, media, and other capacities.
00:09:46.000 Mark would often do Sean's show speaking as a lawyer, and Sean realized then, as did others, that he was special.
00:09:51.000 Mark Levin was not looking to do television, radio, or anything else, but he was drafted by very smart people who understood that there are few like him.
00:09:58.000 When you hear others unfairly attack Mark, remember they are jealous and angry human beings whose sway is much less than the public understands and will know now that they know where I stand rapidly diminish.
00:10:08.000 Other than for his wonderful wife and family, Mark Levin only cares and wants one thing: greatness and success for America.
00:10:14.000 Those that speak ill of Mark will quickly fall by the wayside, as do people whose ideas, policies, and footings are not sound.
00:10:19.000 They are not MAGA, I am, and MAGA includes not allowing Iran, a sick demented and violent terrorist regime, to have a nuclear weapon to blow up the United States of America, the Middle East, and ultimately the rest of the world.
00:10:29.000 MAGA is about stopping them cold, and that is exactly what we are doing.
00:10:34.000 So President Trump calling out some of the grifters.
00:10:37.000 So, what is the upshot of this Tucker Carlson claim likely to be?
00:10:41.000 Well, probably the story just dies out in a couple of days, and then everyone just forgets about it.
00:10:45.000 And then Tucker will continue on to his next bizarro conspiracy theory, all while maintaining that his opponents work for the interests of foreign powers.
00:10:54.000 There are a bunch of people in the U.S. government who do not put the United States before futures of Israel, period.
00:10:58.000 And you saw that very clearly with Mike Huckabee.
00:11:00.000 We interviewed him last week, and there was no sense at all that he represents the United States or has any interest in what happens to the United States.
00:11:06.000 His party is in defending Israel.
00:11:08.000 Now, Huckabee is not Jewish.
00:11:10.000 Who knows what his religion is?
00:11:11.000 Mike Huckabee's loyalty is to Israel over the United States.
00:11:16.000 This is Tucker's shtick.
00:11:18.000 Everybody except for Tucker is actually working for a foreign power, not Tucker, apparent frequent correspondent with and sexter with the Ayatollah.
00:11:26.000 So if I'm gaming out the possibilities, that is, in fact, the most likely possibility.
00:11:30.000 Stupid conspiracy bullshit, rinse.
00:11:32.000 And repeat.
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00:12:28.000 So that's a tough thing.
00:12:37.000 I think that's probably what's happening.
00:12:39.000 Well, speaking of people who get paid money to play parts on screen, the Oscars were last night.
00:12:44.000 I know.
00:12:44.000 You didn't watch.
00:12:45.000 Nobody watched.
00:12:46.000 The Oscars have been in a state of precipitous decline for decades, in part because nobody has seen the movies that are competing for the prestigious Academy Awards.
00:12:54.000 But it's also because the ceremony has become a left-wing agit prop fest.
00:12:58.000 Last night, no exception.
00:12:59.000 The big winner was One Battle After Another, a truly egregiously terrible film about the virtues of domestic terrorism against a white supremacist infrastructure.
00:13:08.000 The other big winner was Sinners, a critical race theory remake of From Dawn to Dusk.
00:13:12.000 That's the Tarantino vampire movie.
00:13:13.000 Meh.
00:13:15.000 Conan O'Brien, formerly a human who was funny, told a bunch of stale jokes about how much Republicans suck.
00:13:23.000 I should warn you, tonight could get political, okay?
00:13:26.000 And if that makes you uncomfortable, there's an alternate Oscars being hosted by Kid Rock.
00:13:32.000 Yeah.
00:13:33.000 It's at the Dave and Busters down the street.
00:13:36.000 A lot of tickets for that.
00:13:39.000 Wow.
00:13:40.000 I mean, how much Hollywood loves Hollywood.
00:13:42.000 Now, all those people who don't agree with our politics, they're probably just, you know, the only thing they've got is Kid Rock and Dave and Busters and all the rest.
00:13:49.000 Well, yes, guys, there's a reason your ratings are in precipitous decline.
00:13:54.000 Well, Conan then went on to make some Epstein references as per our usual arrangement.
00:14:00.000 It's the first time since 2012, first time since 2012, that there are no British actors nominated for best actor or best actress.
00:14:11.000 Yeah.
00:14:12.000 British spokesperson said, yeah, well, at least we arrest our pedophiles.
00:14:16.000 So we got that going forward.
00:14:20.000 Okay, to be fair, I mean, to the, you know, Trump Justice Department, the people arrested in Britain were not arrested for pedophilia.
00:14:28.000 But again, facts have no relationship with the truth when it comes to anything on the left, particularly the Oscars.
00:14:34.000 Conan even made a clavicular reference.
00:14:37.000 Yes, this is how far we have descended in American life.
00:14:40.000 The Oscars now featuring the idiotic lingo of a man who smashes himself in the face with a hammer.
00:14:44.000 Here's Conan O'Brien.
00:14:47.000 Welcome back.
00:14:49.000 Of course, we here at the Oscars are always trying to figure out ways to reach a younger demographic.
00:14:55.000 And I've been assured this next segment will do just that.
00:15:00.000 When you're host mastering the Oscars and locuinely trying to rizz up the younger demographic by going brain rot mode, and even though you're uncoded with a bunch of fame-killed NPCs, you're still S-tier level aura farming 6'7.
00:15:15.000 Well, that's a message that the young people will definitely see watching broadcast television.
00:15:26.000 Ew, that is some terrible writing.
00:15:28.000 My goodness.
00:15:29.000 All in all, it was a totally forgettable evening, and at least most of the Oscar winners stayed out of politics to the disappointment of at least one author in the New York Times, a Daniel Kelman.
00:15:37.000 Kelman is the author of a book called The Director.
00:15:40.000 Honestly, it's a really, really good book, like a really, really good book, but also the author of a pretty terrible column on the necessity for actors to say things.
00:15:47.000 Kelman wrote before the ceremony in the New York Times, quote, Hollywood's great actors and directors are not merely well-known.
00:15:53.000 They are famous figures everywhere, even in dictatorships now closed to the world, such as Russia and North Korea.
00:15:58.000 On Oscar night, not only will the eyes of the American public be fixed on them, so will the ears of the entire planet listening for the answer to the question, your country is being turned into a dictatorship.
00:16:07.000 People are being arrested and shot in the streets.
00:16:09.000 Your mad king is trampling your venerable constitution underfoot.
00:16:13.000 What do you have to say about it?
00:16:14.000 Yes, according to Daniel Kelman, we need to hear from our greatest artists, actors, about their geopolitical analysis.
00:16:22.000 This, of course, is very silly.
00:16:24.000 Kelman's book is about a director named G.W. Papps, who's a little-known director from the 1920s and 30s who actually returned to Nazi Germany from the United States in order to be allowed artistic resources by the regime.
00:16:36.000 His book is about art's surrender to tyranny.
00:16:38.000 In the book, Pabs is fully complicit with a genocidal Nazi regime.
00:16:42.000 He even takes advantage of concentration camp victims as extras.
00:16:45.000 So to equate America in 2026 with Nazi Germany is an act of extreme moral blindness, of course.
00:16:50.000 But unfortunately, that seems power for the course in much of the artistic community.
00:16:55.000 That's why actress Charithra Chandran, who I'd never heard of, wore a pin for the anti-Israel ceasefire in Gaza, where Hamas is currently murdering opponents in the streets, but had not a single actor or actress anywhere on the Oscar red carpet.
00:17:07.000 They had nothing to say about the slaughter of 32,000 Iranians by the regime.
00:17:12.000 The only truly overtly political moment from any winner came from Paul Thomas Anderson, who won a long overdue Best Director Oscars for one of his worst films.
00:17:20.000 Here's what he had to say.
00:17:23.000 I wrote this movie for my kids to say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we're handing off to them, but also with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency.
00:17:41.000 My Pearl, Lucy, Jack, and Ida, I love you.
00:17:44.000 Thank you very much.
00:17:47.000 Paul Thomas Anderson is not saying sorry to his kids.
00:17:50.000 He's saying, look at my virtue signaling while I earn millions of dollars for films that lose $100 million at the box office.
00:17:56.000 But at least he'll sleep better at night with his gold statuette and $10,000 swag bag from the academy.
00:18:03.000 This episode is sponsored by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.
00:18:07.000 Let me paint you a picture.
00:18:08.000 It's midnight.
00:18:08.000 Sirens are blaring.
00:18:09.000 You have only seconds to grab your children and run.
00:18:12.000 Now, imagine you're elderly and your legs don't work the way they used to.
00:18:15.000 Getting downstairs feels impossible after all that.
00:18:17.000 You end up in a bomb shelter for hours or even days because you can't make that trek again.
00:18:21.000 This is what's happening as Iran continues to launch missiles into Israel indiscriminately.
00:18:25.000 Children are being traumatized, families exhausted, homes have been destroyed.
00:18:28.000 That's 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.
00:18:39.000 If you've ever wondered what it looks like to stand with Israel for good against evil, this would be it.
00:18:43.000 Please act now.
00:18:44.000 Give 45 bucks right now to rush life-saving essentials to the vulnerable under fire.
00:18:48.000 Visit benforthefellowship.org to rush your life-saving gift.
00:18:51.000 That is one word, benforthefellowship.org.
00:18:53.000 Again, the ongoing war in Israel has continued for essentially three years at this point.
00:18:59.000 And so the necessity to help people out remains.
00:19:01.000 Check out the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and help out right now.
00:19:04.000 But Shalom is great.
00:19:06.000 All righty, back to Syria's news.
00:19:09.000 Speaking of manure merchants, the legacy media and Iranian government had themselves a ball this weekend promoting a series of propagandistic lies that would make Pinocchio blush.
00:19:17.000 Last Thursday, a radical Muslim terrorist attempted to attack a synagogue and Jewish school in Michigan.
00:19:22.000 That terrorist name was Ayman Ghazali, a Lebanese-born U.S. citizen from the radical Islamist hotbed of Dearborn, Michigan.
00:19:29.000 Defenders of radical Islam immediately jumped into the fray, declaring that Ghazali's action was revenge for Israeli evil.
00:19:35.000 Ryan Grimm of Dropsight News, a far left-wing propaganda outfit, put out this tweet: The man who rammed his explosives laden truck into a Michigan synagogue today was named Ayman Khazale, according to a source familiar with the situation.
00:19:46.000 Khazale posted photos overnight of his family members, including young children, who were killed in a recent Israeli attack on the town of Mashgara, Lebanon.
00:19:53.000 This is a developing story.
00:19:54.000 Now, you'll notice the framing here that Israel randomly attacked Lebanese civilians and that the terror attack was a natural response.
00:20:01.000 First of all, that's totally crazy.
00:20:03.000 Zero American Jews, zero, went and randomly attacked mosques after October 7th.
00:20:08.000 But it also turns out that the two brothers of the terrorists were, wait for it, wait for it, wait for it.
00:20:14.000 Terrorists for Hezbollah.
00:20:17.000 As CBS News reports, Khazali was originally from Mahgara, a town in southern Lebanon with a significant Hezbollah presence and influence.
00:20:26.000 Apparently, a freelance journalist working for CBS News in Lebanon learned from sources on the ground that Ghazali's two brothers stayed in Lebanon and were members of a Hezbollah rocket unit in southern Lebanon.
00:20:36.000 The two brothers were killed in a drone strike carried out by the IDF on March 5th.
00:20:39.000 According to the New York Post, one of those brothers, Ibrahim Mohamed Khazali, was a weapons operations commander in Hezbollah's badr unit.
00:20:46.000 Whoops.
00:20:47.000 But Grimm's tweet quickly rocketed around the internet.
00:20:50.000 Some like Megan Kelly retweeted it, only slightly better, was the original New York Times headline: quote: The Michigan synagogue attacker was a quiet restaurant worker.
00:20:58.000 Well, then, as long as he provided enough napkins to the Shwarma customers, he worked at an actual Schwarma shop.
00:21:03.000 I guess the whole being a terrorist thing, not a big deal.
00:21:07.000 But falsehood has become the order of the day when it comes to Middle East coverage, and Iran knows it.
00:21:11.000 That's why they promote conspiratorial nonsense that taps directly into the toxic power plant that is X. Over the weekend, Iranian National Security Secretary Ali Larijani, who may in fact be the guy running Iran right now, tweeted, quote, I've heard that the remaining members of Epstein's network have devised a conspiracy to create an incident similar to 9-11 and blame Iran for it.
00:21:30.000 Iran fundamentally opposes such terrorist schemes and has no war with the American people.
00:21:38.000 The reason he is tweeting this is obvious.
00:21:40.000 He knows it will be amplified by the Democratic Party, the Grievance Party, their acolytes on X, which, of course, it has been.
00:21:46.000 Again, there's a reason that Tucker Carlson parrots pretty much every Iranian conspiracy theory and did just a couple of weeks ago.
00:21:54.000 Hasn't been reported, but it's a fact that last night in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, authorities arrested Mossad agents planning on committing bombings in those countries.
00:22:05.000 Now, that's weird.
00:22:07.000 That doesn't make any sense.
00:22:08.000 Why would the Israelis be committing bombings in two Gulf countries, which are also being attacked by Iran?
00:22:17.000 Aren't they on the same side?
00:22:20.000 No.
00:22:21.000 No.
00:22:22.000 Israel wants to hurt Iran and Qatar and UAE and Saudi and Bahrain and Oman and Kuwait.
00:22:33.000 Actually, none of it was true.
00:22:34.000 Not a single word that he said was true.
00:22:35.000 Qatar had to come out and deny it.
00:22:37.000 All of this falsehood is minor league stuff, though, compared to the broader narrative being crafted by the legacy media and Democratic Party that America is currently suffering some sort of catastrophic military defeat.
00:22:46.000 Over the weekend, the Wall Street Journal, whose newspages actually left of the New York Times, said this: quote, the joint U.S. military operation has killed Iran's supreme leader, targeted military headquarters, and damaged or destroyed more than 90 Iranian vessels.
00:22:58.000 Yet the price has been steep.
00:23:00.000 At least 13 Americans have been killed, including six, in a crash Thursday of an Air Force refueling plane, making the war in Iran the deadliest military operation of Trump's two terms.
00:23:08.000 At least 140 Americans have been wounded in the conflict.
00:23:10.000 Well, it's true that this is the deadliest conflict of Trump's two terms because he didn't do any other conflicts.
00:23:14.000 But can we be clear, just for purposes of historical clarity, this has not been a costly action comparatively.
00:23:21.000 In fact, the Iran action ranks dead last since 1900 in terms of casualties incurred as a result of a major military operation, which is to say, in American history.
00:23:32.000 But the idea from the legacy media continues to be that catastrophe is right around the corner.
00:23:38.000 You can feel it permeate every aspect of coverage.
00:23:40.000 In fact, if you were an alien landing on Earth and just reading the American news, you would probably assume that America was somehow losing the war right now.
00:23:48.000 And that is not true.
00:23:50.000 Essentially, America and Israel have completely wrecked Iran's military and defense infrastructure.
00:23:55.000 Iran has been reduced to lashing out with ballistic missile and drone attacks on every nearby country.
00:24:00.000 Even those strikes are increasingly desultory given the reduced state of Iran's military capacity.
00:24:06.000 Iran keeps shutting down its internet because they are afraid that people will coordinate and rise up against the government.
00:24:11.000 Here was Foreign Minister Abbas Araki trying to justify that move on American national television yesterday.
00:24:18.000 The Iranian people don't have open internet access, but you do.
00:24:24.000 Well, I'm the vote.
00:24:24.000 Why?
00:24:26.000 Because I'm the voice of Iranians, and I have to defend their rights.
00:24:31.000 So this is why I have access to internet to just, you know, have our voice being heard by the international community.
00:24:45.000 Oh, you see.
00:24:46.000 You see, he needs internet because he speaks for all of Iran, which is why he has to, you know, shut down the internet for all of the Iranians.
00:24:54.000 Yes, that makes sense.
00:24:56.000 And of course, as it turns out, the current supreme leader of Iran may not even be alive.
00:25:00.000 We may be in a full weekend at Ayatollah Bernie's situation.
00:25:03.000 In fact, even if he is alive, he's still a second-rate tinpot dictator.
00:25:06.000 His own father tried to block from leadership.
00:25:08.000 And apparently, he's having some penis problems.
00:25:11.000 Here is Bill Maher explicating over the weekend.
00:25:15.000 It's a big tidbit.
00:25:16.000 Four times he has traveled to a clinic in England to treat impotence.
00:25:22.000 Yes, I love the Ayatollah.
00:25:24.000 They hate the infidel West, until their dick doesn't work.
00:25:29.000 And then it's...
00:25:32.000 Get me on the 2 p.m. to Heathrow, okay?
00:25:35.000 Yeah, four trips.
00:25:36.000 Four trips to this clinic.
00:25:38.000 This guy's got a real problem.
00:25:40.000 I mean, when he gets to paradise, he's going to say to the 72 virgins, can we just talk?
00:25:48.000 That, by the way, is not the only scurrilous rumor about Mojtaba.
00:25:52.000 According to the New York Post, U.S. intelligence believes that Mojdaba is, wait for it, gay.
00:25:59.000 I'm not kidding.
00:26:00.000 They think he's an actual member of Queers for Palestine.
00:26:03.000 They think he's the gay Atolla.
00:26:06.000 No wonder the Post is now reporting, quote, President Trump was stunned to learn last week that U.S. intelligence indicates a new Iranian supreme leader, Moshtaba Khameni, may be gay, and that his father, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, fearing his suitability to rule the Islamic public for that reason, the Post can reveal.
00:26:23.000 Trump couldn't contain his surprise and laughed aloud when he was briefed on the intel, according to sources.
00:26:27.000 I mean, I'm not sure it's possible to love President Trump at this moment more than I love President Trump at this moment.
00:26:31.000 Others in the room also found it hilarious and joined the president's reaction.
00:26:37.000 I mean, I'm sorry, it is funny.
00:26:38.000 While one senior official intelligence official has, quote, not stopped laughing about it for days, said one person familiar with the briefing.
00:26:45.000 To be fair, it's the funniest thing in the entire world.
00:26:48.000 Like maybe in modern history.
00:26:50.000 I mean, I guess we know why the supreme leader of Iran's nickname isn't the straight of hormuz.
00:26:56.000 This does open up some new possibilities.
00:26:58.000 Perhaps he will finally want to negotiate.
00:27:00.000 After all, imagine how much Moshtaba wants to avoid an eternity of 72 women.
00:27:05.000 If we send him DVDs of Bridgerton, is peace on the horizon?
00:27:08.000 And we could be watching history in the making.
00:27:11.000 Since Iran actually transes its gay men, that's a real thing.
00:27:14.000 They hate gay people so much they would rather, quote unquote, turn them into women.
00:27:17.000 Since Iran transes all of its gay men, this could mean we are one surgical snip away from the first female supreme leader of Iran.
00:27:26.000 Her history in the making.
00:27:28.000 So at this point, what does Iran have on its side?
00:27:31.000 One geographic advantage, weak westerners too stupid and short-sighted to grab victory when it's in hand, and the willingness of propagandists to do Iran's work.
00:27:39.000 So, let's talk about that actual real geographic advantage, the Strait of Hormuz.
00:27:44.000 Again, that's not a nickname for Mushta.
00:27:45.000 It would be an opposite.
00:27:47.000 So, as we've discussed for literally years on this program, see, here's the thing: if you listen to this show, you get smarter because I've been talking about things like the Strait of Hormuz or the Strait of Malacca or the Taiwan Straits and the importance of critical waterways for years on this program.
00:28:00.000 Hey, so man, this is why you listen to the show.
00:28:02.000 As we have literally discussed for years on this program, the Strait of Hormuz is a vital shipping waterway.
00:28:07.000 20% of global oil transits the Strait of Hormuz, nearly 40% of it is actually headed for China.
00:28:12.000 As Secretary of Energy Chris Wright pointed out this weekend, the Strait of Hormuz runs directly next to Iran.
00:28:19.000 If you were prepared, why is the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed right now?
00:28:27.000 Because it's right near the Iranian shoreline.
00:28:31.000 The world is abundantly supplied with oil and energy.
00:28:34.000 We knew there would be a short-term disruption in energy flows.
00:28:38.000 And to hear Chuck Schumer say that we didn't is just so he knows how foolish that is.
00:28:44.000 And to say stuff to try to undermine the United States in the midst of a world-changing conflict just boggles my mind.
00:28:53.000 Now, here is a map of the Strait of Hormuz.
00:28:57.000 You can see it here.
00:28:58.000 The Strait is very, very difficult to transit.
00:29:01.000 It's very, very narrow.
00:29:02.000 According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the International Maritime Organization, the strait is 24 miles wide at its narrowest point.
00:29:10.000 The only actual navigable part of that 24 miles is where massive oil tankers can pass through deep enough water is only six miles wide.
00:29:17.000 A highway of two miles going one way, two miles going the other way, and a median between the two of two miles.
00:29:23.000 The outborn export lane is the northernmost lane.
00:29:25.000 That places exporting tankers, apparently about 15 miles from the Iranian coastline and anywhere between three to 10 miles from Iranian-owned islands that are even closer.
00:29:34.000 So, Iran, in an attempt to stave off the end of its regime, has been mining the strait and firing ordnance from its shores at shipping through the strait.
00:29:42.000 President Trump has struck back by sinking basically the entire Iranian Navy and moving to demine the strait.
00:29:46.000 They've been trying to put out mine layers in the strait and we're blowing them up.
00:29:49.000 Weirdly, the country that is actually most endangered by the shutting of the strait is not the United States, it is China.
00:29:55.000 40 to 50 percent, as we've said, of China's oil transits the strait, which means that China actually has a pretty strong interest in keeping it open.
00:30:02.000 That, by the way, is why Iran is still letting China use the strait without bombing its ships.
00:30:07.000 Because if they didn't, China would probably have to work with the United States to keep the Straits of Hormuz open.
00:30:12.000 And that is what President Trump has been counting on.
00:30:14.000 Yesterday, he explained his goal on Truth Social and on Air Force One.
00:30:18.000 Here he was on Air Force One.
00:30:21.000 We'll start immediately, but it will take a little time to get here.
00:30:25.000 Some of the countries have minesweepers.
00:30:27.000 Some of the countries have a certain type of boat that could help us.
00:30:27.000 That's good.
00:30:32.000 Some of the countries would be, you know, help.
00:30:35.000 Remember, it only takes a couple of people to screw up the strait, a couple of terrorists.
00:30:40.000 You don't need their military is to beat it.
00:30:44.000 But all you need is a few people dropping mines here and there.
00:30:47.000 And, you know, you louse it up.
00:30:49.000 So we need, really, I'm demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory because it is their territory.
00:30:58.000 It's the place from which they get their energy.
00:31:03.000 And they should come and they should help us protect it.
00:31:07.000 You could make the case that maybe we shouldn't even be there at all because we don't need it.
00:31:12.000 We have a lot of oil.
00:31:13.000 We were the number one producer anywhere in the world time sue by double, at least double.
00:31:18.000 Now I think it's much higher than that.
00:31:21.000 But we do it.
00:31:24.000 So, one of the tactics that President Trump is trying, and he put this up on Truth Social, is trying to get countries who benefit from the Strait of Hormuz to send warships to keep it open.
00:31:33.000 He wrote, quote, many countries, especially those who are affected by Iran's attempted closure of the Hormuz Strait, will be sending warships in conjunction with the United States of America to keep the strait open and safe.
00:31:42.000 We've already destroyed 100% of Iran's military capability, but it's easy for them to send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along or in this waterway, no matter how badly defeated they are.
00:31:52.000 This, by the way, is why Iran has now been attempting to bomb outlets for oil shipments in the UAE that are sort of on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz to stop them from relieving the pressure on the oil.
00:32:04.000 Hopefully, says President Trump, China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated.
00:32:15.000 In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline and continually shooting Iranian boats and ships out of the water.
00:32:21.000 One way or another, we'll soon get the Hormuz Strait open, safe, and free.
00:32:25.000 See, here's the thing: President Trump is not the type of person who is just going to count on our erstwhile allies.
00:32:29.000 After all, he knows that they are deeply, deeply unreliable.
00:32:33.000 Just ask the useless Nambi Pambi, Kiastama, the erstwhile prime minister of the UK.
00:32:38.000 He had this to say today.
00:32:42.000 But ultimately, we have to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to ensure stability in the market.
00:32:51.000 That is not a simple task.
00:32:55.000 So we're working with all of our allies, including our European partners, to bring together a viable collective plan that can restore freedom of navigation in the region as quickly as possible.
00:33:11.000 Wow.
00:33:12.000 He's going to work with his European allies to do nothing?
00:33:15.000 Wow.
00:33:16.000 That thumb with glasses is going to save us all.
00:33:18.000 And the German defense minister is taking a similarly prone posture.
00:33:21.000 He explained: quote, what does Trump expect a handful of European frigates to do?
00:33:24.000 The powerful U.S. Navy cannot.
00:33:26.000 This is not our war, and we did not start it.
00:33:28.000 Well, actually, Iran kind of started it 47 years ago, and then they never stopped.
00:33:32.000 But the Europeans who want our help against Russia in their own backyard suddenly go totally flaccid when it comes to confronting the leading terror sponsors on the planet who are currently shutting down the world's main oil waterway.
00:33:44.000 But hey, you know, probably the Europeans.
00:33:45.000 I mean, Starmer said he's going to work with the Europeans and come up with some answers, right?
00:33:49.000 Well, here's Kirstarmer's answer: This is a vital cause because until we get ourselves off the roller coaster of international oil and gas markets and onto clean, homegrown British energy, tyrants like Putin and the Ayatollahs will be free to attack our energy security.
00:34:12.000 So we won't slow down on this.
00:34:14.000 We will go faster.
00:34:18.000 So unbelievably stupid.
00:34:19.000 So he's going to make it harder for people to use oil and natural gas to get it shipped in from the United States or elsewhere in order to 50 years from now suddenly be able to be free of the need for the Strait of Hormuz.
00:34:33.000 Yep, the Brits want to fight the Iranians with solar panels and windmills.
00:34:36.000 Good luck to them.
00:34:37.000 And so the next step, I believe, is coming the United States' seizure of Kharg Island, which again, if you've been listening to the show, you'll know we've been talking about for a while.
00:34:46.000 Today's episode is sponsored by American Beverage.
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00:35:46.000 Consistent is what Alvin Plattinga says, and he's correct.
00:35:50.000 Well, in preparation for that move on Kharg Island, the Pentagon is moving additional Marines and warships to the Middle East.
00:35:56.000 As the Wall Street Journal is currently reporting, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseph has approved a request from U.S. Central Command, responsible for American forces in the Middle East, for an element of an amphibious ready group, an attached Marine Expeditionary Unit, typically consisting of several warships and 5,000 Marines and sailors, according to those officials.
00:36:12.000 Now, there could be a lot of reasons for this move.
00:36:15.000 The most obvious possibility is the United States simply taking Kharg Island.
00:36:19.000 That is the Coral Island 15 miles off Iran's coast, the place from which 90% of all Iranian oil is refined and then shipped.
00:36:26.000 Late on Friday, President Trump announced that already the United States had taken out the military resources on Kharg Island.
00:36:32.000 Quote, moments ago in my direction, U.S. CENTCOM executed one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East and totally obliterated every military target in Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island.
00:36:43.000 President Trump said, our weapons are the most powerful and sophisticated that the world has ever known, but for reasons of decency, I have chosen not to wipe out the oil infrastructure on the island.
00:36:51.000 However, should Iran or anyone else do anything to interfere with the free and safe passage of ships through the Strait of Hormuz, I will immediately reconsider this decision.
00:36:58.000 During my first term and currently, I rebuilt our military into the most lethal, powerful, and effective force by far anywhere in the world.
00:37:05.000 Iran has no ability to defend anything we want to attack.
00:37:07.000 There is nothing they can do about it.
00:37:08.000 Iran will never have a nuclear weapon, nor will it have the ability to threaten the U.S., the Middle East, or for that matter, the world.
00:37:14.000 Iran's military and all others involved with this terrorist regime would be wise to lay down their arms and save what's left of their country, which isn't much.
00:37:20.000 Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Trump.
00:37:22.000 Well, here's some of the footage of the United States striking Karg Island.
00:37:27.000 This is from CENTCOM.
00:37:31.000 You can see that's making things go boom.
00:37:34.000 That is what the United States military is incredibly good at.
00:37:38.000 Just busting up Iranian military facilities on Kharg Island while leaving all of the oil infrastructure intact.
00:37:48.000 Look at the sophisticated.
00:37:49.000 I mean, you can see there's like a populated area right across the road, and we're hitting specific targets.
00:37:53.000 We're hitting planes on the tarmac, blowing up the ability of the Iranians to actually fly their planes out.
00:37:59.000 It's incredible, incredible stuff from the U.S. military, which of course is performing in an extraordinary fashion.
00:38:10.000 Well, I sort of doubt that the United States is going to stop here.
00:38:12.000 It makes little sense to leave Kharg Island totally intact and in the control of the Iranians if the Iranians are still threatening the Strait of Hormuz.
00:38:19.000 And remember, when it comes to dictatorships, it is the flow of money that dictates power.
00:38:23.000 If you cannot pay your IRGC members to murder dissidents, why would they continue to work for you?
00:38:28.000 Right now, there are no working banks in Iran.
00:38:30.000 Apparently, they shut down the rest of the banks.
00:38:32.000 The ATMs aren't even working in Iran.
00:38:33.000 There is no money.
00:38:34.000 Soon, there may be no oil flow.
00:38:37.000 So what comes next?
00:38:39.000 Well, Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, he's the one who is the son of the Shah, and there's a big movement inside Iran to sort of bring him back as a figurehead.
00:38:47.000 He announced his goals over the weekend to free the economy from military control, to reclaim Iranian wealth abroad and return it to Iran, to cut off Iranian wealth going toward terrorism, to take anti-corruption measures and to invest in human capital of Iran and connect it to the global economy.
00:39:03.000 So what happens next?
00:39:04.000 Well, it sort of depends.
00:39:06.000 Everybody wants the regime to fall in the next five minutes.
00:39:09.000 David Friedman, former U.S. ambassador to Israel, made a fantastic point online the other day.
00:39:13.000 He said, listen, Ronald Reagan made the Bring Down This Wall speech in 1987.
00:39:18.000 Took a couple of years for the Soviet Union to fall.
00:39:21.000 So, everybody take a little bit of a breath.
00:39:22.000 That doesn't mean unending conflict in Iran or years-long conflict, but if the regime is so weakened that in six months it's gone, that is one of the great historic moves by any administration in American history.
00:39:34.000 So, here's the question: Where are Americans in terms of the polling?
00:39:38.000 Well, despite the insanity of the Grievance Party and the Panicans and the Democrats, the American people are still ready to give President Trump time.
00:39:45.000 In fact, the current conflict in Iran is more popular than it was when it began.
00:39:50.000 According to a new Washington Post poll, while only 39% of Americans were in favor when it was initiated, versus 52% opposed today, 42% support it and 40% oppose.
00:40:01.000 The share of Americans who say we ought to continue the strikes has now risen from one quarter to 34%.
00:40:07.000 Meanwhile, the share saying we need to stop has declined from 47% to 42%.
00:40:11.000 Suffice it to say, Americans are pretty split on the war.
00:40:14.000 They will make up their minds when we win it.
00:40:16.000 And President Trump knows that.
00:40:17.000 Here he was this morning.
00:40:20.000 I have to do what's right.
00:40:22.000 Everybody is concerned.
00:40:23.000 I have to do what's And we're going to let Iran have a nuclear weapon to blow up the entire Middle East and beyond, right?
00:40:40.000 Because, you know, they were going to blow up the Middle East.
00:40:42.000 If I didn't terminate the Obama-horrible deal, the Iran nuclear deal, it's called, if I didn't terminate that in my first term, they would have already had a nuclear weapon and they would have used it immediately upon getting it.
00:40:58.000 Now, President Trump happens to be right, and this is an act of moral courage.
00:41:02.000 All of this is radically reshaping geopolitics in favor of the United States.
00:41:06.000 At the same time, we are taking Iranian power off the board.
00:41:08.000 We are radically increasing our flow of oil to China's rivals.
00:41:11.000 As Secretary of the Interior Doug Bergham explained on Fox News, the United States has now inked a $56 billion energy deal with Asian Pacific allies.
00:41:19.000 Here was Bergham explaining.
00:41:22.000 It went from, I think we had one more after the conference closed.
00:41:25.000 I think we went from $56 billion to $57 billion over 22 deals.
00:41:29.000 We had over 630 attendees at this conference, the first ever Indo-Pacific energy security conference led by the United States here.
00:41:40.000 And of course, this is all of our Pacific allies from Australia, New Zealand, all the way up to Japan.
00:41:47.000 And this conference was planned months ago completely independent of anything going on in the Middle East because this is President Trump's energy dominance policy is about the fact that we need to sell energy to our friends and allies so they don't have to buy from adversaries.
00:42:05.000 He is right about this.
00:42:06.000 And reportedly, the Chinese are kind of freaking out.
00:42:08.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, President Trump's use of military force in Venezuela and Iran reinforces a view long held in Beijing.
00:42:16.000 The U.S. will use all means necessary to assert American dominance around the world, a posture that threatens China's core interests.
00:42:22.000 Apparently, Xi is now concluding that the U.S. must be approached with toughness.
00:42:26.000 That is really, really silly.
00:42:28.000 That he ever supposed the U.S. could be approached with weakness, like he was going to be moving forward with detente in the absence of American strength.
00:42:35.000 The difference is that before there was somebody who was a pansy on the other end, and now there is someone tough on the other end representing the United States.
00:42:42.000 Other Chinese allies are also weakening.
00:42:45.000 Cuba is in very serious existential trouble due to the Trump administration's stranglehold on Venezuela.
00:42:50.000 The oil that was holding up Cuba is gone now, and the protests in the streets are growing.
00:42:55.000 Here's some of the video.
00:42:59.000 You can see major protests in the streets of Cuba.
00:43:05.000 This is only going to continue, by the way.
00:43:13.000 I mean, children, adults, women marching in the streets.
00:43:16.000 Cubans were actually rioting outside the Communist Party headquarters.
00:43:19.000 Things are getting very serious for the Cuban communist regime.
00:43:30.000 This regime is not long for this world.
00:43:33.000 Thank God.
00:43:34.000 Peace through strength breeds victory.
00:43:36.000 Weakness and appeasement breed only a stronger enemy.
00:43:38.000 And stalling for time typically favors America's enemies.
00:43:41.000 Meanwhile, on the home front, Democratic states continue to alienate their producers by raising taxes.
00:43:46.000 Zara Mamdani, fresh from his week of soft-peddling the threat of radical Islam, was back to soaking the rich over the weekend.
00:43:52.000 Here was Smarmi Mamdani.
00:43:55.000 Being in the wealthiest city and the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we already see an exodus of working and middle-class New Yorkers.
00:44:02.000 So I don't have a hesitation in asking those who make the most amount of money in the city or the most profits in the city to pay a little bit more so that everyone can actually stay in this city.
00:44:14.000 Except that they're not going to stay in the city.
00:44:16.000 Bloomberg is reporting that Mamdani now wants the New York estate tax, like the basis for it, cut to $750,000 and he wants to increase the confiscation rate to 50%, from something like 16%, like to 50%.
00:44:30.000 Meaning, let's say you inherited a $2 million home from your parents.
00:44:33.000 You would now owe 50% on $1.25 million, thus losing about a third of your total inheritance.
00:44:39.000 Well, listen, New Yorkers, you voted for this.
00:44:41.000 Republican states, by contrast, are moving to lower taxes.
00:44:44.000 States including Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Missouri, are moving to decrease their income tax rates.
00:44:49.000 The Wall Street Journal reports in 2006, 15 states had top income tax rates on wage income below 5%.
00:44:56.000 Just one exceeded 10%, according to the Tax Foundation, a group that favors lower rates and fewer breaks.
00:45:00.000 Now, more than half of the states have gone below 5%.
00:45:03.000 Five others plus DC are in double digits.
00:45:06.000 Actually, I think this is great.
00:45:07.000 Let the American people choose with their feet.
00:45:10.000 Some of us already did.
00:45:12.000 Folks, so bottom line: when we look at the state of the world, President Trump continues to win.
00:45:19.000 If you think he is going to allow the Strait of Hormuz to remain closed, you have another thing coming.
00:45:23.000 And every day that the Iranians try to exert more and more and more pressure, every single day, President Trump will push even harder on the other end.
00:45:32.000 And the people who right now are trying to undermine the Trump administration with silly rumors, terrible rumors about the Trump administration coming after them.
00:45:40.000 I'm just going to say right now, my belief, it's nonsense.
00:45:42.000 All righty, folks, the show continues for our members right now.
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