The Ben Shapiro Show - WINNING: Trump CRUSHES Doubters, Opens Strait of Hormuz!

00:00:00.000 Folks, you've been lied to.

00:00:02.000 You've been hearing for weeks now from all of the doubters, all of the so called panicans, but here is what you are not going to hear anywhere else.

00:00:09.000 Not just that President Trump is winning in Iran, but why he is winning.

00:00:14.000 He came in with four goals.

00:00:16.000 He has now achieved three of them, and the fourth is on the way.

00:00:20.000 Iran had three methods of resistance.

00:00:22.000 President Trump has basically eliminated two of them, and the third is on the way.

00:00:26.000 I'll explain it all.

00:00:27.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:37.000 Now, folks, we keep hearing that President Trump didn't actually lay out the goals of the war in Iran.

00:00:41.000 And people keep assuming that the goal of the war in Iran was regime change.

00:00:44.000 No, regime change is a means.

00:00:46.000 It is not the actual end in a certain sense.

00:00:48.000 If the regime were to change its behavior dramatically, you wouldn't need to change the regime.

00:00:52.000 And yes, if there were to be a regime change, it would achieve pretty much all the goals all at once.

00:00:57.000 But you don't have to achieve all of the goals of the war with regime change.

00:01:01.000 So he did lay out the goals.

00:01:03.000 And so did his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. 0.50

00:01:06.000 And here they were one, destroying the vast majority of Iran's forward military capacity.

00:01:12.000 Done. 0.60

00:01:13.000 We have defenestrated their foreign military capacity, their missile base, basically gone.

00:01:19.000 Their Air Force, their Navy, gone.

00:01:22.000 Two, wiping out their defense industrial base.

00:01:26.000 Done. 0.65

00:01:27.000 The United States and Israel have wiped out their steel foundries. 0.98

00:01:29.000 They have hit all of their missile factories, they have hit their missile launchers.

00:01:33.000 Three, keeping their economy in a stranglehold, depriving them of the means to rebuild.

00:01:38.000 Obviously done. 1.00

00:01:39.000 The Iranian economy is defunct. 1.00

00:01:41.000 Nothing has been getting in. 0.88

00:01:43.000 And finally, four, ending the Iranian nuclear threat.

00:01:46.000 And that's the one that's pending.

00:01:47.000 So, three of those four have basically been done.

00:01:50.000 It's the Iranian nuclear threat that is the one that's left on the table. 0.71

00:01:53.000 Okay. 0.91

00:01:54.000 Say the panic ins and the liars, but somehow Iran has gotten stronger. 0.94

00:01:57.000 This is what we might call the Obi-Wan Kenobi theory of foreign policy. 0.99

00:02:01.000 If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

00:02:05.000 Okay.

00:02:05.000 It doesn't work that way in real life.

00:02:07.000 When you strike someone down, they usually stay down.

00:02:10.000 And if they recover, you can strike them down again. 0.99

00:02:13.000 The spirit of Iran is not going to teach Luke Skywalker how to blow up the Death Star. 0.94

00:02:18.000 That's not how this works.

00:02:19.000 It is not clear how you get stronger by being alienated from every single country in the region, from Jews to Muslims, or how somehow you're getting stronger if all your leaders are dead and you're walking around as a regime pretending that an impotent, comatose dude with no leg is your actual leader. 0.60

00:02:35.000 Weekend at Mullahs.

00:02:37.000 Or how you get stronger when your missile launch capacity has been so degraded, so radically degraded, that you're being forced to physically unbury the missile launchers you buried.

00:02:45.000 They buried a bunch of missile launchers to hide them, and now you're being forced to unbury them just so you have something to shoot, and we can see you doing that.

00:02:51.000 And so, if there's another round here, we will just blow those up too.

00:02:54.000 Or, how do you get stronger if your Navy is at the bottom of the sea? 0.98

00:02:57.000 Or, how do you get stronger if your Air Force, which was a bunch of Vietnam era crap, is now a bunch of shrapnel? 0.70

00:03:04.000 How are you stronger when your economy is totally non existent? 0.99

00:03:07.000 When in a few weeks, you're not going to have money to pay your IRGC thugs? 1.00

00:03:11.000 But, okay, fine. 0.99

00:03:12.000 Say the panicans and the liars. 1.00

00:03:13.000 The Iranians will still win. 1.00

00:03:14.000 They will win by outlasting. 1.00

00:03:15.000 So, here's the thing.

00:03:17.000 Staying alive isn't winning unless we're doing the Hunger Games, which we're not.

00:03:22.000 So, just to take a similar example, is Cuba winning right now?

00:03:26.000 Is Cuba winning?

00:03:27.000 Cuba, the Cuban communist regime has survived.

00:03:29.000 Are they winning or are they on their last legs?

00:03:34.000 Pretty clear they are losing.

00:03:36.000 And so is the regime in Tehran.

00:03:38.000 So, the regime in Tehran had three methods of resistance, and they've been building all three of these methods of resistance for years and years and years and years.

00:03:45.000 First, the so called axis of resistance. 0.68

00:03:47.000 This would be all of the terror proxies they put all over the region from Hamas.

00:03:51.000 To Hezbollah, to the Houthis, to terror groups in Iraq. 0.75

00:03:55.000 All of those members of the Axis of Resistance were supposed to be Iran's forward army. 0.73

00:04:00.000 That was their forward capacity.

00:04:01.000 And since October 7th, 2023, Israel has steadily degraded andor destroyed those terrorists for forward capacity.

00:04:09.000 So, Hamas, for example, no forward capacity at this point.

00:04:13.000 They're stuck in a small section of Gaza.

00:04:16.000 They may be trying to rebuild, won't matter. 0.87

00:04:18.000 Israel will go in and blow them up again.

00:04:20.000 Hezbollah has been so greatly reduced as a power in the region, as we'll talk about.

00:04:24.000 then now they are in danger of complete evisceration.

00:04:28.000 The Houthis could have gone active any time during this war.

00:04:31.000 After all, they're Iranian allies, and they didn't. 0.96

00:04:33.000 And they didn't for a reason. 1.00

00:04:34.000 They knew that if they had, they would have been obliterated too.

00:04:37.000 So the terror proxies that Iran had been funding for generations basically defenestrated.

00:04:43.000 That was their number one mode of striking back.

00:04:47.000 Number two was the nuclear program.

00:04:49.000 Okay, so the nuclear program, that was what they were attempting to develop.

00:04:52.000 They're racing toward a nuclear bomb to protect their regime, and that is what caused all of this to happen.

00:04:56.000 If they had given up their nuclear program years ago, they would have had normalized relations with a lot of different countries.

00:05:01.000 The sanctions would not be on them.

00:05:03.000 But they decided that they were going to race forward with that nuclear program and they got the hell bombed out of them. 0.77

00:05:08.000 And then finally, there was the Strait of Hormuz.

00:05:11.000 Okay, so the Strait of Hormuz, they shut that down, right?

00:05:15.000 And them shutting down the Strait of Hormuz was supposed to be their trump card.

00:05:19.000 That was the thing that was supposed to stop everything. 0.68

00:05:22.000 This is where all of the panic ends and all the liars and the people who hate Trump and hate Israel and all the rest, this is where all of them started to say, well, you know, the Iranians, they really showed you they shut the Strait of Hormuz.

00:05:33.000 They shut the Strait of Hormuz.

00:05:35.000 Well, it's open now.

00:05:37.000 In just a moment, we'll get to President Trump's announcement that the Strait of Hormuz is in fact open.

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00:06:41.000 So, as of this morning, the President of the United States put out a statement The Strait of Hormuz is completely open and ready for business and full passage, but the naval blockade will remain in full force and effect as it pertains to Iran only.

00:06:55.000 Until such time as our transaction with Iran is 100% complete.

00:06:58.000 This process should go very quickly, and that most of the points are already negotiated.

00:07:02.000 Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Trump.

00:07:04.000 Okay, so it's open now.

00:07:05.000 So remember that time when they said that we would never be able to open the strait?

00:07:08.000 We would never be able to.

00:07:10.000 So what did we do?

00:07:11.000 We said, you guys can close the strait, but if you do, we are going to stop all ships going in and out of Iranian ports.

00:07:17.000 And then you just won't have an economy, and then you are dead in the water.

00:07:20.000 And guess what?

00:07:21.000 Guess what?

00:07:22.000 Within a week and a half, they opened the strait.

00:07:24.000 They stopped messing around in the strait because they didn't have the forward operating capacity.

00:07:28.000 Their navy was, in fact, at the bottom of the sea.

00:07:31.000 The Persian Gulf was littered with the hulks of their ships. 0.90

00:07:35.000 The reality is that their pathetic mine laying capacities, and I say pathetic because they were actually just putting mines in the water and losing them out there. 0.74

00:07:46.000 We are now demining the Strait of Hormuz because they weren't even competent enough to do that. 0.88

00:07:51.000 The president put out some more truth socials on this subject.

00:07:54.000 Quote Now that the Hormuz Strait situation is over, I received a call from NATO asking if we would need some help.

00:07:59.000 I told them to stay away unless they just want to load up their ships with oil.

00:08:02.000 A paper tiger, President Trump. 0.99

00:08:02.000 They were useless when needed. 0.99

00:08:04.000 Fact.

00:08:05.000 And then he said, Iran, with the help of the United States, has removed or is removing all sea mines.

00:08:09.000 Thank you.

00:08:10.000 Again, this deal is not tied in any way to Lebanon, but we will make Lebanon great again.

00:08:14.000 I'll explain why that one is important in just a second.

00:08:18.000 And the president said, Iran has agreed to never close the Strait of Hormuz again.

00:08:21.000 It will no longer be used as a weapon against the world, President Trump.

00:08:23.000 And of course, the reason this happened really is because the Chinese said, we're not doing this game.

00:08:27.000 That's really what happened here the Strait of Hormuz closing hurt the Chinese way worse than it hurt us.

00:08:32.000 The Chinese presumably brought pressure to bear via Pakistan on the Iranians, and the Iranians decided to open the Strait. 1.00

00:08:39.000 So that is a victory. 0.99

00:08:41.000 Now, there are people saying, well, it wouldn't have been shut in the first place if you hadn't attacked Iran. 0.96

00:08:45.000 Okay, but the point is the reason that Iran did that is because they were desperate. 0.69

00:08:50.000 Again, there were only three things that they could do to preserve their regime long term.

00:08:56.000 One was the axis of resistance, been defenestrated, been destroyed. 0.92

00:08:59.000 This is why what Trump said about Lebanon and the Lebanon war is important. 0.85

00:09:02.000 Two, nuclear program, defended, by the way, by a shield of ballistic missiles. 0.99

00:09:08.000 One of the reasons why the United States and Israel went now is because Iran was ramping up its development of ballistic missiles beyond the capacity of various THAAD systems and Patriot systems to shoot them down.

00:09:20.000 And so Israel and the United States said, you don't get to build an umbrella of missiles and then build your nukes beneath them. 0.67

00:09:26.000 And so that's what prompted all of this.

00:09:29.000 Okay, so that was their other capacity.

00:09:30.000 We'll get to the nukes in a second.

00:09:32.000 And then third was the Strait of Hormuz. 0.67

00:09:33.000 And two of the three capacities have now been removed, and the third is well on its way.

00:09:38.000 So, yes, that's a victory.

00:09:39.000 Again, look at the shifting goalposts.

00:09:41.000 A week ago, people were saying he'll never be able to open this.

00:09:43.000 Literally, one week ago.

00:09:45.000 He'll never be able to open the Strait of Hormuz.

00:09:47.000 It won't happen. 1.00

00:09:48.000 The Iranians just have a stranglehold. 1.00

00:09:49.000 They have total control. 1.00

00:09:50.000 Weird, because like 10 days later, it's open.

00:09:53.000 And by the way, the only ships that are not free to transit the Strait are the ones that we are locking up.

00:09:59.000 Why?

00:10:00.000 I don't know how that doesn't sound like a victory to you.

00:10:02.000 It is a victory, in fact, when oil dives back down dramatically.

00:10:06.000 And we've been told that that was the chief element that was somehow going to undermine the war.

00:10:13.000 When Brent crude dropped 11% at the beginning of the morning, Down below 90 bucks, and it's going to drop further.

00:10:22.000 How is that not a victory, by the way?

00:10:25.000 And one of the reasons, by the way, that Iran had to give up the ghost year is because of all of the airstrikes that we did in Iran.

00:10:33.000 Miyad Maleki points out from the Foundation of Defense for Democracies that the six plus weeks of strikes before the blockade actually made it far more devastating for the regime.

00:10:43.000 70% of their missile launchers had been destroyed or disabled, 200 air defense systems were struck.

00:10:48.000 The U.S. and Israel had achieved full air superiority within 24 hours.

00:10:52.000 Missile launches plummeted from 350 on day one to 50 by day four. 0.62

00:10:58.000 And most importantly, Iran could not reroute its oil over land, which meant that they were done.

00:11:02.000 If they couldn't export their oil by building pipelines in other ways, right, when the Strait of Hormuz shut, Saudi immediately started building pipelines in other directions.

00:11:12.000 Iran could not because we had struck their capacity to do so.

00:11:15.000 Their two biggest steel plants shut down.

00:11:17.000 That meant 70% of their steel capacity disrupted.

00:11:21.000 85% of their petrochemical export capacity was knocked out.

00:11:26.000 The South Power strikes alone took out 12% of Iran's total gas production.

00:11:31.000 So, what does this mean? 0.57

00:11:32.000 Well, it means, again, go back to those things that Iran supposedly was holding over the United States and Israel and all of our Gulf allies its terror proxies, ballistic missile and nukes, and the Strait. 0.66

00:11:44.000 Well, the Strait is now open.

00:11:47.000 The ballistic missiles have been devastated.

00:11:49.000 The nukes are on their way, as we'll get to in a moment. 0.71

00:11:51.000 And so, all that was left was basically the terror proxies.

00:11:53.000 And the terror proxies had been largely destroyed.

00:11:56.000 The reason why. 0.69

00:11:57.000 The United States and Israel had the unique capacity to go after Iran right now is because Israel spent the last couple of years destroying Hezbollah. 0.90

00:12:05.000 The great threat in 2022, if you ask any Israeli, was from the northern border, Hezbollah, possibility of them shooting targeted rockets by the tens of thousands into Israel. 0.79

00:12:15.000 And Israel ended that threat and then moved forward to completely end the threat in the middle of this war so that Iran had no forward capacity. 0.79

00:12:23.000 So Iran is trying to save face now.

00:12:25.000 Iran is trying to claim that it's not because the president of the United States put a blockade on Iranian ships.

00:12:30.000 that they are giving up control of the Strait of Hormuz.

00:12:34.000 They're saying that the only reason for the ceasefire is the ceasefire in Lebanon.

00:12:34.000 They're lying.

00:12:40.000 So, simultaneous with this happening, the President of the United States pushed forward a ceasefire in Lebanon.

00:12:45.000 So, while all eyes have been on the situation in Iran, Israel has been doing heavy operations in the south of Lebanon to finally, once and for all, extirpate the threat from the south of Lebanon.

00:12:54.000 For those who don't know their history, Hezbollah has been a dominant force in southern Lebanon since the early 80s.

00:13:00.000 So, if you look back at Lebanese history, it's amazing.

00:13:03.000 There's so many people.

00:13:04.000 Who hate Israel and who are purportedly doing so because, in some way, they supposedly love Christians, which, again, I find a bizarre contention since literally the only country with a naturally growing Christian population in the entire Middle East is Israel.

00:13:18.000 But if you want to look at who kills Christians, take a look at Lebanon.

00:13:22.000 Take a look at Lebanon.

00:13:24.000 Lebanon used to be a thriving Christian country, it was, in fact, a majority Christian country.

00:13:30.000 And then it became more and more Muslim. 1.00

00:13:32.000 And then, even beyond that, it turned into a Palestinian chaotic hellhole. 0.99

00:13:38.000 The reality is that the Palestinians arrived in Lebanon in the mid 70s after they were expelled from Jordan. 0.96

00:13:43.000 They took up residence at the southern border and they started murdering Lebanese politicians, Christian politicians, and they started attacking across the border into Israel. 0.52

00:13:53.000 That is what led to, for example, Israel's incursions into Lebanon in both 1978 and 1982.

00:13:59.000 And the Israelis were told not to do that in 1982.

00:14:02.000 By the way, a great tragedy because if Israel had been able to finish off the PLO, In 1982, it would have forestalled the collapse of the Lebanese government, ending in a bizarre power sharing arrangement in Lebanon in 1989 that eventually led to essentially the domination of the entire government of Lebanon by the Iranian terrorist group Hezbollah.

00:14:23.000 Okay, so that's the actual backstory here.

00:14:26.000 So the president announced that the Lebanese government, which since Israel has been attacking Hezbollah over the course of the last couple of years, in retaliation, by the way, for Hezbollah joining in a couple of days late on the October 7th attacks.

00:14:40.000 Because Israel did such damage to Hezbollah, the Lebanese government, which has always had a very, very raw and difficult relationship with Hezbollah, which is both a terrorist group and also they have a political presence in the government of Lebanon, the Lebanese government has never truly wanted to be run by an outside terrorist group run from Iran, which is what Hezbollah is.

00:15:02.000 And so there are now talks, open talks, between the Lebanese government, which says they oppose Hezbollah and the Israeli government.

00:15:08.000 Now, the big problem in Lebanon is that Hezbollah has a lot of weapons.

00:15:12.000 The Lebanese government and the Lebanese army have been particularly weak.

00:15:15.000 You'll remember there was a quasi settlement that was signed between the Lebanese government and the Israelis about a year ago.

00:15:23.000 And the goal of that agreement was to allow the Lebanese government to strip Hezbollah of its capacity against Israel.

00:15:30.000 And that would lead to some sort of peace agreement.

00:15:31.000 And Lebanon was unable to achieve that.

00:15:33.000 Hezbollah was rebuilding below the Latani River.

00:15:36.000 The Latani River is a river that runs east west in Lebanon, located about one quarter of the way from the southern border of Lebanon.

00:15:45.000 Okay, so in the last couple of weeks, Israel did a massive operation in Lebanon.

00:15:50.000 They took out something like 1,700 Hezbollah fighters.

00:15:55.000 They cleared the Hezbollah population from southern Lebanon.

00:15:59.000 They moved all the way up to the Latani River and they blew up the bridges. 1.00

00:16:02.000 And then they moved north of the Latani River also, because the idea is. 0.58

00:16:05.000 Never again will Israel allow Hezbollah to routinely fire rockets by the thousands into northern Israel.

00:16:11.000 There were hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens who, for legitimately two years, were living away from their homes at kind of apartments, other places in Israel.

00:16:19.000 The entire north of Israel was emptied because of Hezbollah's rocket fire.

00:16:23.000 And so Israel said, We're not doing that anymore. 0.94

00:16:25.000 And while we are taking out the Iranian forward capacity, we are going to take out their true forward capacity in Hezbollah. 0.54

00:16:31.000 And Hezbollah panicked and freaked out. 0.84

00:16:34.000 And they called on the Iranian government to help them.

00:16:36.000 And the Iranian government couldn't do much.

00:16:39.000 And so, what the Iranian government is now trying to claim is that the only reason why they are opening the Strait of Hormuz is because they somehow pride a concession out of President Trump and Israel with regard to saving Hezbollah.

00:16:53.000 That is the thing that they are promoting.

00:16:55.000 Now, President Trump immediately put out a statement and he said that that is not actually what is happening here.

00:17:03.000 He said that this had nothing to do, the opening of the Strait of Hormuz had nothing to do with Lebanon.

00:17:08.000 Quote Again, this deal is not tied in any way to Lebanon.

00:17:11.000 But we will make Lebanon great again.

00:17:13.000 So what is exactly happening there?

00:17:14.000 Well, the president announced, I just had excellent conversations with the highly respected President Joseph Ayoun of Lebanon and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu of Israel.

00:17:23.000 These two leaders have agreed that in order to achieve peace between their countries, they will formally begin a 10 day ceasefire at 5 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday.

00:17:29.000 The two countries met for the first time in 34 years here in Washington, D.C. with our great Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

00:17:34.000 I have directed Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Rubio, together with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Raisin-Kane, to work with Israel and Lebanon to achieve a lasting peace.

00:17:42.000 It has been my honor to solve nine wars across the world.

00:17:44.000 This will be my 10th, so let's get it done, President Trump.

00:17:47.000 Now, notice who else is sitting there?

00:17:48.000 The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Nan Kane.

00:17:52.000 Why?

00:17:53.000 Because presumably any negotiation will have to have some guarantee that the Lebanese government will actually take action against the Iranian forward proxy, Hezbollah.

00:18:02.000 And if they don't have the capacity, presumably Dan Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is going to help out Lebanon in fulfilling its commitments.

00:18:09.000 Because otherwise, there ain't going to be a lasting deal here, and the president knows it.

00:18:13.000 Prime Minister Netanyahu put out a statement, quote, This is something that hasn't happened in over 40 years.

00:18:37.000 I answered that call.

00:18:38.000 I agreed to a timeout or more accurately, a temporary 10 day ceasefire to try and advance the agreement we began discussing during the meeting of ambassadors in Washington.

00:18:46.000 There are two demands that Netanyahu is making for the peace talks. 0.66

00:18:49.000 The first is the disarmament of Hezbollah.

00:18:53.000 The second is a sustainable peace agreement, peace through strength.

00:18:55.000 So, in other words, Israel is not going to simply sign away its security at its own northern border because Iran is asking it to.

00:19:02.000 Hezbollah wanted two conditions first, that Israel withdraw from all Lebanese territory back to the international border.

00:19:08.000 And second, a ceasefire based on the quiet for quiet model, meaning if you don't fire, we don't fire.

00:19:13.000 And Netanyahu said, I agree to neither of these.

00:19:15.000 And indeed, these two conditions are not being met.

00:19:16.000 We're remaining in Lebanon in a reinforced security buffer zone.

00:19:20.000 This is not the five points that existed before Operation Roaring Lion.

00:19:23.000 This is a security buffer that starts at the sea and continues to Mount Dove and the foothills of Mount Hermon up to the Syrian border.

00:19:28.000 This is a security 10 kilometers deep, which is much stronger, more intense, more continuous, and more solid than what we had previously.

00:19:35.000 That is where we are, and we are not leaving.

00:19:37.000 This allows us, first and foremost, to block the danger of an invasion into our communities.

00:19:40.000 And secondly, it allows us to prevent direct anti tank fire into our communities.

00:19:44.000 The residents are now protected from these two dangers.

00:19:46.000 Of course, there are still problems, says Netanyahu.

00:19:49.000 They still have rockets left.

00:19:50.000 We will have to deal with that as well as part of the progress toward a security agreement and a continuous peace treaty.

00:19:54.000 But there's something else, and I want to tell you what it is. 0.79

00:19:56.000 I've spoken with President Trump over these last two days, says Netanyahu, and he told me he is tremendously determined to continue the naval blockade and to bring about the dismantling of Iran's nuclear capability, what remains of it. 0.72

00:20:06.000 He is not giving up on this. 0.71

00:20:07.000 He is certain he can eliminate this threat once and for all, continuing the great things we have done together.

00:20:11.000 Of course, we will also handle the missile threat and the enrichment capability.

00:20:14.000 I will not elaborate.

00:20:15.000 These are two very important moves that can fundamentally change our security and diplomatic situation for years to come.

00:20:20.000 With God's help, we will act, and with God's help, we will succeed.

00:20:23.000 Well, President Trump was asked what is different this time with regard to Israel and Lebanese negotiations.

00:20:29.000 He says the answer is that I'm here.

00:20:34.000 And tried to make peace before.

00:20:36.000 What's going to be the difference this time?

00:20:37.000 Me.

00:20:38.000 I'm liberal.

00:20:39.000 Big difference.

00:20:40.000 Me.

00:20:43.000 Okay, so the Iranian foreign minister, trying to seize some form of face saving here, put out a tweet suggesting that the ceasefire in Lebanon is what led to the opening of the Strait of Hormuz.

00:20:55.000 And the president, again, already rejected that.

00:20:57.000 Quote, the Iran deal is in no way subject to Lebanon.

00:21:01.000 And then he thanked Saudi, UAE, and Qatar for their great bravery and help in demanding all of this.

00:21:06.000 Fine.

00:21:06.000 So, what's going to happen in those negotiations?

00:21:08.000 We'll find out.

00:21:09.000 One thing is very clear the Israeli government, and they know this, the Israeli government will not stand if they allow for the reconstitution of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. 0.63

00:21:18.000 Any peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon, remember, Lebanon is not Hezbollah.

00:21:23.000 Israel has not been at war with the Lebanese government.

00:21:25.000 Israel has been at war with Hezbollah, a terrorist group that has been nothing but horror for the Lebanese people.

00:21:33.000 And one of the things that Israel has been doing when it moved into southern Lebanon, they said if you're Christian, you can stay because you're not the problem.

00:21:38.000 If you're a member of Hezbollah, you need to go.

00:21:41.000 That's what actually has been happening.

00:21:44.000 So, what does that mean? 1.00

00:21:45.000 Again, the Iranians only had a few cards to play. 0.95

00:21:49.000 Card number one was their axis of resistance that has been heavily, heavily defenestrated. 0.92

00:21:54.000 Two, the Strait of Hormuz, now open. 0.82

00:21:56.000 And finally, three, their nuclear program.

00:21:59.000 And the president says that's going to go too.

00:22:02.000 That's going to go too.

00:22:03.000 And again, the president is setting some pretty significant lines here.

00:22:06.000 All the talk about tacoing, the president said from the very beginning, he's been saying it for legitimately 40 years.

00:22:14.000 Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

00:22:17.000 Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

00:22:18.000 And again, when it comes to the sort of rhetorical battle that he's having with Pope Leo, in which the Pope seems far more critical of the president for trying to disarm a terrorist regime that is anti Jew, anti Christian, anti Sunni Muslim, and anti civilization.

00:22:37.000 The Pope seems to be spending all his time on how upset he is with the president and with Israel, making vaguely worded statements.

00:22:46.000 The president has the moral upper hand there.

00:22:48.000 He does.

00:22:49.000 He does.

00:22:51.000 That's just a reality.

00:22:54.000 The reality is that the moral side is to oppose the Iranian regime, not to oppose the people trying to stop the Iranian regime.

00:23:03.000 In any case, and again, I say that with respect for the Pope's moral stature.

00:23:08.000 But there's a difference between the underlying moral principle, war is bad, or just war theory, or all the rest, and the application of that in practice.

00:23:17.000 Here is the president talking about all this.

00:23:19.000 He says, listen, you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. 0.75

00:23:21.000 He's been absolutely clear on this.

00:23:24.000 Well, I want him to preach the gospel.

00:23:25.000 I'm all about the gospel.

00:23:27.000 But I also know that you cannot let a certain country, which is a very mean spirited country, have a nuclear weapon.

00:23:34.000 If they did, they would use it.

00:23:36.000 And I think they'd use it quickly and they would kill many millions of people.

00:23:40.000 So, you know, the Pope can disagree with me on that, but certainly we're allowed to have that.

00:23:44.000 I'm all about the gospel.

00:23:46.000 I'm about it as much as anybody can be. 0.73

00:23:48.000 But I can't allow, as President of the United States of America, I can't allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

00:23:55.000 And here's the story they won't have. 0.82

00:23:58.000 They've already agreed not to have.

00:24:00.000 That's good news.

00:24:01.000 And I think the Pope will be very happy.

00:24:03.000 Already coming up.

00:24:04.000 So, what about those nukes?

00:24:05.000 What's happening there?

00:24:05.000 We'll get to that in a moment.

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00:25:26.000 Okay, so the President of the United States then took on the rumor that he was only asking for a 20 year limit on Iranian nuclear development.

00:25:35.000 He said, nope, they're going to agree to no nuclear weapons.

00:25:39.000 Very important is that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, and they've agreed to that.

00:25:45.000 Iran's agreed to that, and they've agreed to it very powerfully. 0.59

00:25:49.000 They've agreed to give us back the nuclear dust that's way underground because of the attack we made with the B-2 bombers. 0.82

00:25:55.000 So we have a lot of agreement with Iran, and I think something's going to happen very positive. 0.92

00:26:02.000 We have a statement, very, very powerful statement, that they will not have, beyond 20 years, that they will not have nuclear weapons.

00:26:10.000 That's beyond.

00:26:11.000 There's no 20-year limit.

00:26:14.000 And then, honestly, I thought this is the best line by the president yesterday.

00:26:17.000 He was asked about the fact that Iran has been executing political prisoners.

00:26:21.000 Listen to this response.

00:26:24.000 Iran is going to execute four more protesters, including the first woman protester.

00:26:29.000 What do you tell Iran?

00:26:30.000 Well, tell that to the Pope.

00:26:32.000 What did you say?

00:26:33.000 Tell that to the Pope.

00:26:34.000 You want to patch things up in the head of the Pope?

00:26:38.000 Did you just hear that Iran is going to execute four people, including women? 1.00

00:26:44.000 That is exactly right. 1.00

00:26:46.000 That is exactly right.

00:26:48.000 If the Pope wants to speak out morally, then he should do so.

00:26:53.000 Now would be an excellent time. 0.98

00:26:54.000 And listen, I understand that the papacy has routinely had to deal with the real world politics of the fact that there are Christian minorities living in majority Muslim countries where they're heavily mistreated, and so they don't want to tick off those regimes. 0.79

00:27:07.000 However, you don't get to sign in to chat on some areas of supposed immorality, like fighting the bad guys while being silent on the bad guys.

00:27:16.000 In any case, the president of the United States was asked about whether there would be an extension of the U.S. Iran ceasefire.

00:27:21.000 He said, Nope, I don't think we're going to need it.

00:27:23.000 We're probably going to get to the end of this pretty quickly.

00:27:26.000 We're doing very well, I can tell you.

00:27:28.000 Maybe it'll happen before that.

00:27:29.000 I'm not sure it needs to be extended.

00:27:33.000 Iran wants to make a deal, and we're dealing very nicely with them.

00:27:38.000 We've got to have no nuclear weapons.

00:27:40.000 That's a big factor.

00:27:42.000 And they're willing to do things today that they weren't willing to do two months ago.

00:27:49.000 Also said that the relationship with Iran is better because, you know, now they want to do things so that they won't be bombed or blockaded.

00:27:49.000 The president.

00:27:56.000 Accurate. 0.53

00:27:58.000 We have a very good relationship with Iran right now, as hard as it is to believe.

00:28:03.000 And I think it's a combination of about four weeks of bombing and a very powerful blockade.

00:28:09.000 The blockade is maybe more powerful than the bombing, if you want to know the truth.

00:28:16.000 He is not wrong about that. 0.99

00:28:17.000 Again, the economy of Iran is stopped dead. 0.95

00:28:20.000 It is stopped dead.

00:28:21.000 As far as the stories, there are a bunch of stories that now the Iranians are really going to have their revenge because they're digging out their missile launchers. 0.74

00:28:27.000 Yeah, they didn't want to have to do that. 0.97

00:28:29.000 They're digging them out.

00:28:30.000 And you know what we can see them doing?

00:28:32.000 Digging them out.

00:28:33.000 And you know what's good about that?

00:28:34.000 If they dig them out, they're no longer sheltered.

00:28:36.000 And if they're no longer sheltered, then we can just blow them up if we go back to actual forward activities.

00:28:44.000 Here was Secretary of War Pete Hegzev.

00:28:47.000 While you are digging out, which is exactly what you're doing, digging out of bombed out and devastated facilities, we are only getting stronger.

00:28:56.000 You are digging out your remaining launchers and missiles with no ability to replace them.

00:29:02.000 You have no defense industry, no ability to replenish your offensive or defensive capabilities.

00:29:09.000 You only have what you have.

00:29:11.000 You know that, and we know that.

00:29:14.000 You can move things around, but you can't actually rebuild.

00:29:18.000 You can dig out for now, but you can't reconstitute.

00:29:22.000 But we can.

00:29:24.000 We are reloading with more power than ever before.

00:29:29.000 Well, that is right.

00:29:30.000 That is exactly right.

00:29:31.000 Meanwhile, again, our military is extraordinary at what they do, and they work with extraordinary firms like Palantir in order to actually upgrade our military capacity.

00:29:40.000 Great piece from Pirate Wire is talking about what Palantir does.

00:29:44.000 Palantir is capable of going through intelligence at an extraordinarily rapid rate instead of spreadsheets that it used to be done on a person to person basis.

00:29:57.000 You'd have to go through a spreadsheet more than 1,000 times a day.

00:30:02.000 In order to just get information on the kill chain and make sure that the proper people were being struck.

00:30:08.000 Now, according to Pirate Wires, manufacturers can ditch spreadsheets in favor of warp speed and app the draws from the alphabet soup of various agencies.

00:30:16.000 Further, AI agents can actually do actually work.

00:30:20.000 They can do shipping manifests, stock levels, past disasters, and use all the logic and forecast models to come up with a reallocation plan.

00:30:27.000 Meanwhile, the Pentagon, taking the advice of people like the CTO over, At Palantir Shamsankar, who's been a guest on the show, is starting to go to various domestic manufacturers and tell them to boost weapons production.

00:30:41.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, GE Aerospace and the vehicle and machinery maker Oshkosh were among the companies involved in the talks with defense officials.

00:30:50.000 The Defense Department is committed to rapidly expanding the defense industrial base by leveraging all available commercial solutions and technologies to ensure our warfighters maintain a decisive advantage.

00:30:59.000 Dual use technologies, in other words, which is a good thing.

00:31:01.000 It means that we actually have flex capacity, which is really important.

00:31:04.000 You want to ramp up.

00:31:05.000 You can ramp up.

00:31:06.000 You want to ramp down?

00:31:07.000 You can ramp down. 0.91

00:31:09.000 Okay, meanwhile, the only other thing so the Iranians, again, the way they were fighting back straight at Hormuz, no longer. 0.84

00:31:16.000 Terror proxies, they got a problem. 0.89

00:31:18.000 They're nuclear, looks like they are on the verge.

00:31:20.000 So the only thing they have left is the fifth columnist.

00:31:22.000 The only thing they have left are the members of the Grievance Party, the anti Semites on the left, the Grievance Party members on the right who join hands with them. 0.79

00:31:31.000 And so the Iranians are basically trying to use X to end the war. 0.82

00:31:36.000 Massoud Pateshkian, the Iranian president, and Tucker Carlson guest said, Last year at the UN General Assembly, I urged a return to the golden rule of Islamic Christianity and Judaism and human conscience.

00:31:47.000 Do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself.

00:31:49.000 A universal principle so blatantly violated by the Zionist regime. 0.80

00:31:52.000 Nuclear weapons for one regime, but war against an entire nation over its peaceful nuclear program. 0.80

00:31:57.000 Scientists assassinated in Iran, Iraq, and Syria. 0.67

00:32:00.000 Children killed in Minab.

00:32:01.000 Has human conscience died in some world leaders?

00:32:03.000 Okay, so first of all, we have always believed that some regimes should have nukes and some should not.

00:32:08.000 Like the ones we're allied with, we don't really have a problem with them having nukes.

00:32:11.000 It's, you know, terrorist regimes that threaten the obliteration of our allies, both Muslim and Jewish, as well as threats against Europe and the rest of the world.

00:32:22.000 Yeah, that's a problem.

00:32:24.000 The reason that he says this sort of stuff is he figures that he will find allies, which of course he does.

00:32:29.000 And the bizarre coalition of the pseudo dispossessed continues.

00:32:35.000 I have to say, there's a peculiar.

00:32:38.000 A peculiar Scheudenfreude for me in watching Ilhan Omar praising Marjorie Taylor Greene and Candace Owens.

00:32:46.000 Of course she is.

00:32:48.000 I mean, because they're on the same side.

00:32:50.000 That would be the reason.

00:32:51.000 Ilhan Omar, who's yet to meet an Islamist terror group that she doesn't have some warm feeling for, is out there praising Marjorie Taylor Greene and Candace Owens because they're on the same side.

00:33:03.000 Duh.

00:33:06.000 The thing that has been very fascinating, especially about Marjorie and Candace, is that they are not just coming out like the other ones that you'd mentioned, where they're saying, This action is wrong, right?

00:33:21.000 They're saying, I am done with you.

00:33:26.000 Again, pretty amazing.

00:33:28.000 All the masks coming off all at once. 0.64

00:33:30.000 Meanwhile, Graham Plattner, who is running for Senate in Maine, it turns out that back in 2014, When Hamas raided a military base near Kibbutz Nahal Oz, he praised the actual operation.

00:33:46.000 Looks like an all around well executed and successful small unit raid to me, is what he said on Reddit at the time.

00:33:52.000 This is where the mainstream left is going and quickly.

00:33:54.000 Bernie Sanders put forward a resolution to try to defund aid to Israel in the middle of a war where they are our ally.

00:34:03.000 They have planes in the sky and we have planes in the sky and they are flying the same missions and talking to each other.

00:34:08.000 And the Democrats are trying to defund only them, which is amazing.

00:34:12.000 And it does demonstrate something, which is that the hatred for Israel on the part of the left is indeed springing from the same place as the anti Americanism of Bernie Sanders.

00:34:20.000 Bernie hates America's place in the world.

00:34:22.000 Bernie is anti American.

00:34:23.000 And so it's not a surprise he's also against America's allies.

00:34:26.000 It's all coming from the same anti American place over and over and over again, like a lot.

00:34:33.000 Well, Graham Plattner is part of that. 0.87

00:34:34.000 Presumably, he would join the 40 Democratic senators who voted in favor of not selling bulldozers to the Israelis because what?

00:34:42.000 You think the Israelis can't build their own bulldozers or find it from someplace else?

00:34:45.000 My guess is they can probably find some bulldozers. 0.59

00:34:47.000 Amazing stuff from the Democrats. 1.00

00:34:49.000 Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is trying to undermine the war. 1.00

00:34:51.000 She's digging at gas prices. 1.00

00:34:52.000 Man, she is just.

00:34:54.000 I hope they nominate her, truly.

00:34:55.000 I mean, she did such a great job last time.

00:34:57.000 She is now doing the Hillary Clinton 2016 routine where she goes to like Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and drinks a beer.

00:35:05.000 So she went out in the middle of some town somewhere, I think it's North Carolina, I think, and stood outside a gas station and pretended that she cared about gas prices.

00:35:13.000 By the way, if she cared about gas prices, she should check them out in California.

00:35:16.000 I'm in California right now.

00:35:17.000 I will tell you, the gas prices here in her home state are like twice as high, and it's not because of the Strait of Hormuz.

00:35:24.000 It is because of the vast regulations and taxes placed on gas consumption in the state of California. 0.99

00:35:29.000 Here's Kamala Harris digging at gas prices.

00:35:31.000 Again, watching Democrats dig at gas prices after spending my entire lifetime trying to undermine gas production in the United States, it's a thing, man.

00:35:38.000 It's pretty amazing.

00:35:40.000 Hey, everyone.

00:35:41.000 So I'm here in Charlotte since the start of Trump's war of choice.

00:35:45.000 It's 15.

00:35:46.000 More dollars every time you fill up your tank of gas.

00:35:49.000 The price of diesel has now gone up 80% since the start of the war.

00:35:54.000 And you best believe that's going to carry over to how much you're paying for all the goods that are being transported on those semis.

00:36:01.000 We've got a president who is paying more attention to what he thinks is in his best political interest and personal interest as opposed to what is in the best interest of working people in America.

00:36:13.000 Sorry, I fell asleep in the middle of that.

00:36:14.000 Was she saying something?

00:36:15.000 I can't believe this is the best they've got.

00:36:18.000 But don't worry.

00:36:19.000 She does have friends on the other side.

00:36:20.000 Tucker Carlson is, he's gone, man.

00:36:23.000 I mean, he is gone.

00:36:24.000 So, yesterday, he did a podcast in which he called the president of the United States the Antichrist.

00:36:29.000 He didn't even try to hide it.

00:36:30.000 He just said it.

00:36:30.000 He said Donald Trump is matching up with the prophecies of the book of Daniel about the Antichrist, says Tucker Carlson.

00:36:37.000 He also, you know, the absolute cowardice here is pretty insane.

00:36:42.000 He says the civic religion of the U.S. government is Israelism.

00:36:45.000 And what is Israelism? 0.81

00:36:46.000 He says Israelism is.

00:36:48.000 The Bible, but without the New Testament. 0.95

00:36:51.000 Dude, just say it. 1.00

00:36:52.000 Just say it, you coward. 1.00

00:36:54.000 Just say what you want to say. 1.00

00:36:57.000 Say what you want to say, Tuck.

00:36:58.000 Just say it.

00:36:59.000 We all know you just want to say it.

00:37:00.000 So just say it.

00:37:01.000 Then he cowers behind.

00:37:02.000 No, I'm not an anti. 1.00

00:37:04.000 I don't join a Jennings group. 1.00

00:37:05.000 Oh, okay. 1.00

00:37:06.000 Sure, dude.

00:37:07.000 Sure.

00:37:09.000 Go for it.

00:37:09.000 All right.

00:37:12.000 What is the civic religion of the United States?

00:37:14.000 What's the religion of the U.S. government?

00:37:17.000 What's the religion, honestly, of Donald Trump?

00:37:21.000 It's not Christianity, clearly.

00:37:24.000 It's Israelism.

00:37:25.000 It's the defense of Israel.

00:37:27.000 No, Trump isn't a Christian. 0.65

00:37:28.000 Tucker Carlson, Tucker Carlson, who full scale promotes the Marcion heresy, is the true Christian in all of this. 0.72

00:37:35.000 Again, just say what you want to say, dude. 1.00

00:37:37.000 Israelism. 0.76

00:37:38.000 There's no religion called Israelism.

00:37:40.000 You know what you want to say, and we all know what you want to say. 0.79

00:37:42.000 Anyway, the President of the United States put out yet another truth social, an accurate one. 0.92

00:37:46.000 Quote, who's dumber, Tucker Carlson or Joe Kent? 0.92

00:37:49.000 It's very interesting. 0.93

00:37:50.000 I met Joe Kent at Dover Air Force Base along with numerous others who had lost their loved ones in war.

00:37:54.000 I said hello to all of the families.

00:37:56.000 Ken horribly lost his wife.

00:37:57.000 Her casket was being brought into Dover, along with the rest, although he married again quite quickly, in my opinion, in any event.

00:38:02.000 A number of years later, I noticed the same person was running for Congress in Washington state and lost.

00:38:06.000 I then noticed a couple of years later he was running again and lost.

00:38:09.000 Well, I didn't know him other than our brief Dover encounter, but feeling sorry for him after the two election losses, I told my people hire him for the White House, give him a job, make him feel good.

00:38:18.000 He lost his wife and two elections.

00:38:19.000 They did, and while I rarely saw him, I certainly didn't expect disloyalty, but that's what I got.

00:38:24.000 He was really a sleazebag.

00:38:26.000 And some would say, on top of it all, a leaker.

00:38:28.000 I don't know whether or not that was true, but next time, no more Mr. Nice Guy. 1.00

00:38:31.000 Kent is a loser, just like Tucker, Candace, Megan, and the rest of them are losers. 1.00

00:38:35.000 You're born that way, low IQ. 1.00

00:38:37.000 There's not a damn thing they're going to be able to do about it, President Trump. 0.99

00:38:42.000 And then he continued along these lines It's easy. 0.98

00:38:44.000 Tucker is a low IQ person, always easy to beat and highly overrated. 1.00

00:38:47.000 So are Megyn Kelly, Candace, really dumb and mentally ill, and bankrupt Alex Jones, who's completely fried. 1.00

00:38:53.000 There are others also. 0.99

00:38:54.000 Then we have some that are very good, true MAGA all the way and smart.

00:38:56.000 I should do a list of good, bad, and somewhere in the middle.

00:38:58.000 Wouldn't that be fascinating, President Trump?

00:39:00.000 I mean, I would read it.

00:39:02.000 Okay, so here's the thing all of this fifth columnist nonsense that's being pushed by Iran, as we'll discuss in just a second, is having no impact with regard to President Trump's approval rating, particularly among his chief constituents.

00:39:15.000 In fact, as Harry Anton at CNN points out, one of the reasons why Republicans may actually outperform low expectations in the midterms is because the group most likely to vote is still holding steady with Trump.

00:39:30.000 President Trump is more than holding his own amongst a very large portion of the electorate, a very reliable voting block, and that is senior citizens.

00:39:39.000 Take a look here, okay?

00:39:40.000 Trump's approval rating age is 65 plus.

00:39:42.000 In March of 2025, 46%.

00:39:45.000 Look at where it is now.

00:39:46.000 It's basically the same. 0.97

00:39:48.000 Seniors have not moved. 0.76

00:39:50.000 He's at 44% now.

00:39:51.000 And the key nugget here is for all this talk about young people in the electorate, such as myself, or at least I like to include myself in that block, it turns out that older voters, Senior citizens vote in far larger numbers.

00:40:05.000 So Republicans look at this number and they say, hey, you know what?

00:40:08.000 We can actually potentially do some real damage or at least hold our own in the midterms because President Trump is holding his own with this very important voting block.

00:40:18.000 Okay, so again, all the talk about how Trump is, he's totally fried, he's cooked.

00:40:24.000 Not true.

00:40:24.000 Okay, but what's actually happening here?

00:40:26.000 So our reporter, Cassie Akiva, she's a foreign affairs reporter here at the Daily Wire, has a fascinating piece.

00:40:32.000 Data has been provided by Network Contagent Research Institute and shared with us at the Daily Wire.

00:40:37.000 And here's what they show creative content, including everything from Lego style war videos to Jeffrey Epstein cast as the devil manipulating Trump into war, pushed across more than 70 accounts, reaching over 1.1 million followers. 0.51

00:40:49.000 They are leveraging the algorithm to attack the United States, President Trump, and Israel, and doing so effectively.

00:40:54.000 Before Operation Epic Fury, many of these Iranian embassy accounts posted sparingly, often fewer than 10 times a day. 0.92

00:40:59.000 Then a switch flipped.

00:41:01.000 Data from 69 of the accounts shows a clear surge to between 50 and 200 posts per day, flooding feeds with a nonstop stream of content, according to data compiled by the NCRI.

00:41:12.000 Here is a graph.

00:41:13.000 You can see the daily tweet volume.

00:41:15.000 Look at that gigantic spike that happens at the beginning of the war.

00:41:18.000 Beginning of the war happens, and boom, it just jumps.

00:41:22.000 It just jumps because they are creating an echo chamber in order to take advantage of the algorithm.

00:41:28.000 And you can do this.

00:41:29.000 If you have a bunch of accounts that are all retweeting each other and promoting each other and saying the same thing, you end up with a gigantic spike in particular narratives.

00:41:38.000 Look at the massive spike beginning with the war in the Iranian embassy accounts, weekly keyword mentions of Trump, Israel, or the United States.

00:41:46.000 Look at that gigantic spike.

00:41:48.000 An analysis of 18,246 tweets shows a spike in mentions of those topics beginning in early March.

00:41:54.000 And again, that is juicing the algorithm.

00:41:59.000 Well, joining us on the line is Cassie Akiva, our foreign affairs reporter.

00:42:02.000 Cassie, thanks so much for the time.

00:42:04.000 Really appreciate it.

00:42:05.000 Thanks for having me.

00:42:08.000 So, what you're reporting here really does explain this vast gap between, for example, Republican public opinion, as taken by every single poll during the course of this war, and the notion that you are definitely receiving when you go on X, that 90% of Republicans, of people on the right, are somehow opposing President Trump.

00:42:25.000 And it does have a bleed over effect.

00:42:26.000 Can you explain what's going on here? 0.52

00:42:29.000 So, first, we've heard for years the Iranian bots, right? 0.95

00:42:29.000 Right. 0.95

00:42:33.000 There is this whole conspiracy about it, actually quite true, that there were so many Iranian accounts based in Iran, anonymous, pushing propaganda.

00:42:40.000 Iran has taken a new approach where they are being blatant about it. 0.69

00:42:43.000 They're being out there with it. 0.65

00:42:45.000 And they're using what we're calling propaganda slop or slopaganda, which is using AI to create really low quality, low cost content.

00:42:53.000 And they're pushing it out there.

00:42:55.000 And a lot of them are actually quite funny and they're going viral in American audiences.

00:42:58.000 And that's because they're weaponizing AI.

00:43:01.000 If you had to make this content before AI, it costs a lot of money and it would take a lot of time.

00:43:05.000 But now what they're doing is they're tapping into what's going on in American domestic conversations and they're pushing it.

00:43:10.000 When President Trump posted that picture of himself as Jesus, or he says he was a doctor, they tapped into that and they've made hundreds of pieces of content based off of that.

00:43:19.000 So they're listening to us and they're trying to get into our ecosystem and it's working.

00:43:25.000 So when you say that it's working, obviously the amount of material that is now replete on social media is really, really high.

00:43:31.000 What sort of effect do we think that's actually having in terms of bleed over?

00:43:34.000 Because I remember when I was much younger, I would talk about the radicalism on college campuses and people would say, well, people in the real world don't believe that.

00:43:40.000 And pretty soon, a lot of people in the real world started to believe that sort of nonsense.

00:43:44.000 What kind of bleed over effect is this having in terms of public opinion on the war, for example?

00:43:50.000 Right.

00:43:50.000 If I call my grandfather or my sister, who's not political, I doubt they've even heard of the Iranian embassy account.

00:43:55.000 What they're doing is they're weaponizing, I would say, the conservative media apparatus.

00:44:00.000 I mean, they're going into the podcast wars, as we call them.

00:44:03.000 So they're really trying to make this content and go viral, and they are.

00:44:07.000 And the way they're operating is like an influencer network.

00:44:10.000 This is how conservative influencers, left wing influencers operate in America.

00:44:13.000 They have group chats, they share things, they interact with each other, and that's how you game the system.

00:44:18.000 And they're doing this.

00:44:19.000 These accounts are not operating like embassy accounts.

00:44:22.000 Before the war, they were.

00:44:23.000 They'd post embassy advisories, they'd talk about the country they're in.

00:44:30.000 Now they're posting in and they're talking to each other.

00:44:34.000 I also include an article that they fight with people on Twitter. 0.65

00:44:37.000 They'll call people dirty dogs, random Twitter users. 0.92

00:44:41.000 They're operating like teenage boys. 0.75

00:44:42.000 If I saw these accounts and didn't see the names, I would think they're some meme lord on the internet.

00:44:47.000 So they're definitely tapping into American culture.

00:44:50.000 And I do think it's having a believable effect.

00:44:51.000 and maybe some young people who are very online.

00:44:56.000 Well, Cassie Akiva, really appreciate the time and the insight.

00:44:58.000 It's a great report.

00:44:59.000 Check it out over at Daily Wire.

00:45:00.000 Again, you're only going to get great reporting like that from the Daily Wire when you become a subscriber.

00:45:05.000 The reality is that we do an awful lot of investigative work.

00:45:07.000 Cassie is one of those reporters.

00:45:08.000 Cassie, appreciate the time.

00:45:11.000 Thank you.

00:45:14.000 Well, meanwhile, the Democrats continue to push forward massive taxation policies.

00:45:14.000 All right.

00:45:19.000 So yesterday we discussed the smarmy mayor of New York, our smarmy socialist friend, who did an entire video celebrating Tax Day, which, again, it's such a weird thing.

00:45:28.000 Tax day is bad.

00:45:29.000 No one likes paying their taxes.

00:45:30.000 It's like going to somebody's funeral and being like, Happy Funeral Day!

00:45:33.000 But that's exactly what Momdani did.

00:45:35.000 You liked that guy, Dad, didn't you?

00:45:36.000 Happy Funeral Day.

00:45:37.000 Happy Tax Day.

00:45:38.000 We're going to go after those guys over there.

00:45:42.000 Well, President Trump had some words for Zoran Momdani yesterday while he was in Las Vegas.

00:45:49.000 Look at New York.

00:45:50.000 I mean, he's a nice guy.

00:45:51.000 Calls me all the time, says hi.

00:45:54.000 But his policies are no good.

00:45:56.000 He's chasing people out and causing a lot of harm to everybody.

00:46:00.000 I mean, everybody's taxes are going through the roof.

00:46:04.000 I mean, he is not, in fact, a nice guy.

00:46:06.000 I mean, he may be nice to his friends, but I'm not sure what relevance that has to the fact that he's trying to literally target the earners in his city.

00:46:13.000 Meanwhile, Zorn Mamdani is saying that democratic socialism can flourish anywhere.

00:46:18.000 It can flourish literally anywhere.

00:46:20.000 I mean, it's doing great work all across the country in blue cities, except for like all of the blue cities, which are not doing amazing right now.

00:46:28.000 Here is Mamdani.

00:46:30.000 I'll be honest with you.

00:46:31.000 Before I was the mayor, I was an assembly member of Astoria in Long Island City.

00:46:34.000 At that time, I was told that you could only be a democratic socialist in Northwest Queens.

00:46:39.000 Then I became the mayor.

00:46:40.000 Now the next question is the state.

00:46:41.000 Then it'll be the next question will be the country.

00:46:43.000 I think that this is a politics that can flourish anywhere because, frankly, there is only one majority in this country that's the working class.

00:46:50.000 And it's time we have a politics that puts them at the heart of what it is that we're pursuing and not as part of the appendix.

00:46:56.000 I mean, I am sure that that politics can flourish anywhere because envy lies in every human heart.

00:47:01.000 It's not that hard to find people who want to do class warfare.

00:47:03.000 It's been an issue for literally all of human existence on planet Earth.

00:47:08.000 So that means that Democrats are very excited to push their brand of taxes.

00:47:13.000 The Philadelphia mayor, a woman named Sherelle Parker, who things are going really, really well in Philadelphia.

00:47:17.000 I'm being sarcastic, they're going really poorly.

00:47:19.000 She is now reiterating her plan to tax $1 per ride in Philadelphia for ride shares for Uber and Lyft, which, again, is a regressive tax because many of the people who are using ride shares are people who don't own cars.

00:47:33.000 They're not exactly loaded.

00:47:35.000 And then she says, You don't get to tell me how to tax you.

00:47:38.000 I mean, we literally do in the United States get to tell our politicians how to tax us.

00:47:42.000 In fact, some might say we fought a revolution in order to be able to tell our politicians how to tax us.

00:47:47.000 But I guess back to the Brits.

00:47:48.000 Here we go.

00:47:52.000 For business here.

00:47:53.000 But how dare you tell me, as mayor of this city, to tell the people in this city that we cannot and should not enact what is one of the most limited powers that we have, and that is to decide how we will drive revenue to the school district of Philadelphia.

00:48:16.000 How dare you tell her how to tax you?

00:48:19.000 I mean, she's the queen of Philadelphia, apparently.

00:48:22.000 But meanwhile, this sort of nonsense is being pushed everywhere.

00:48:25.000 California is about to just shoot itself directly in the face with regard to its own economy. 0.57

00:48:30.000 They're pushing a wealth tax, which is insane.

00:48:32.000 It's a 5% wealth tax, a tax on all wealth, meaning like unrealized capital gains.

00:48:38.000 Like you own a company and you haven't cashed out of your company, and they just tax you on the value of your company.

00:48:41.000 So you could easily be paying more every year in taxes than you actually make from a company if you are a stockholder in your own small company, for example.

00:48:51.000 As Stephen Moore points out in the New York Post, If California were to adopt that 5% wealth tax, California would overnight become the least competitive state in America.

00:49:01.000 In America.

00:49:02.000 And people are already fleeing.

00:49:03.000 I'm talking to Californians all the time.

00:49:05.000 And there's a reason the real estate market in luxury real estate in Miami is just booming right now.

00:49:12.000 And then my favorite part about this is that Democrats then try to claim that fiscal responsibility is the thing they care about.

00:49:18.000 Guys, for Democrats, the point is the tax.

00:49:21.000 It is not what they spend the money on.

00:49:22.000 They want to spend money on everything.

00:49:24.000 There are no limits to what they want to spend money on.

00:49:26.000 No limits.

00:49:27.000 But it's not because they want to take money in order to spend it.

00:49:30.000 They want to take money in order to take it, and the spending is the excuse for the taking of the money.

00:49:35.000 That is the real thing here, which is why, for example, Chris Rufo, senior fellow and director of the Initiative on Critical Race Theory at Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal, has now uncovered the fact, along with other reporters at Manhattan Institute, that illegal immigrant Californians are now being given sex change surgeries on the taxpayer dime.

00:49:57.000 And by the way, this is being touted by the office of Gavin Newsom.

00:50:02.000 Quote, undocumented Californians don't get special treatment.

00:50:05.000 Everyone on Medi Cal gets the same access to care.

00:50:07.000 If you want to call California woke for not letting politicians interfere with doctors or not wanting people to die in the streets, then go ahead.

00:50:14.000 I will note here that fiscal responsibility does not come into it because it turns out that Gavin Newsom had to freeze new Medi Cal enrollments for illegal immigrants because there weren't enough dollars.

00:50:24.000 There wasn't enough money.

00:50:25.000 Chris Rufo joins us online right now.

00:50:27.000 Chris, thanks so much for the time.

00:50:28.000 Really appreciate it.

00:50:29.000 It's great to be with you.

00:50:32.000 So, you keep uncovering stories over at City Journal and in your work that, frankly, I think people just don't believe.

00:50:39.000 I remember during the last presidential cycle, people were saying that Kamala Harris wanted sex changes for illegal immigrants.

00:50:45.000 And the entire media was like, that's nonsense.

00:50:47.000 That can't be true.

00:50:48.000 And it was absolutely 100% true.

00:50:51.000 And now you're proving that it's true.

00:50:52.000 And now California, I mean, points to Newsom for honesty, I guess, and saying that this is a good thing.

00:50:57.000 What are you uncovering out there?

00:50:59.000 Yeah.

00:50:59.000 I mean, this is a very clear instance of that pattern on the left, especially in these.

00:51:04.000 Blue states where they say, no, that's not happening. 0.71

00:51:07.000 And then after a short period of time, they say, yes, it is happening and it's a good thing. 0.95

00:51:11.000 And in this case, all we had to do was go to a number of homeless shelters in San Francisco on the ground and talk to people who told us these trans migrants said directly to us, we came from Honduras, we came from Mexico, we crossed over the border illegally because we knew that we could get free hormones, free breast implants, and free genital surgeries from the state Medi Cal program. 0.89

00:51:35.000 We have them on the record.

00:51:37.000 We have all sorts of corroborating evidence from documents within California's healthcare system.

00:51:43.000 And it was apparently the evidence was so overwhelming that Gavin Newsom had no choice but to admit that it was happening.

00:51:51.000 So, Chris, one of the things that's amazing about all of this is that you would imagine that if you were, let's say, a Democratic legislator or governor, that you would want to show people that your use of taxpayer dollars is actually good, that that's what justifies the tax.

00:52:05.000 In the same way that Democrats in the 90s left behind safe, legal, and rare with regard to abortion, and now it's just shout your abortion, it seems like they left behind the entire logic that they used to use with regard to taxes.

00:52:15.000 I'm old enough to remember when Democrats made the argument that you need tax dollars in order to pay for critical services.

00:52:20.000 And now it seems that they just make the argument that tax dollars are in and of themselves an inherent good.

00:52:25.000 That's the only way that I can explain their willingness to embrace every crazy cause for tax dollar use.

00:52:31.000 And also, by the way, to try to bar investigations into fraud.

00:52:34.000 I mean, the California government right now is considering an act.

00:52:38.000 That is designed to outlaw the sharing of photo or personal data of healthcare providers and various welfare providers on the internet because they're afraid that people might actually call into question, for example, all these people getting subsidies from the state government.

00:52:52.000 Again, if you're a fan of spending taxpayer dollars, shouldn't you want to oppose fraud?

00:52:55.000 But I guess they don't oppose fraud.

00:52:57.000 The fraud is the point, in fact.

00:53:00.000 Yeah, it's exactly right.

00:53:02.000 And you put it very, very, very brilliantly.

00:53:04.000 And look, we've moved away from Bill Clinton, the era of big government is over.

00:53:09.000 Into an era of totalizing an ideological government.

00:53:12.000 And the other key distinction that I'm seeing in California is that they can't build overpasses.

00:53:18.000 They can't build bridges.

00:53:19.000 They can't reduce the price of electricity.

00:53:21.000 They can't actually deliver any of those critical infrastructural services. 0.84

00:53:26.000 But what they can do is all of these ideological programs, sending money to NGOs, sending money to academics, sending money to transgender doctors. 0.60

00:53:35.000 And so the culminating symbol of governance by California is the bullet train to nowhere that never materialized. 0.74

00:53:43.000 Versus transgender sex change surgeries for illegal migrants. 0.88

00:53:47.000 This is Gavin Newsom's ultimate legacy.

00:53:50.000 He can't deliver the goods, but he can deliver ideological spoils to his friends and allies within the state.

00:53:58.000 So, Chris, as somebody who ran away from California with my company and with large swaths of my family, it seems to me that basically California is now in a death spiral.

00:54:07.000 And I know there's a lot of enthusiasm about the possibility that maybe through the bizarreness of the open primary system in California, maybe Republican suddenly gets elected to the governorship.

00:54:15.000 Even if that were to happen, he would face down a Democratic super legislature.

00:54:18.000 So a super majority in the legislature.

00:54:20.000 So it wouldn't matter a lot, a lot.

00:54:23.000 Do you see any possibility that places like California reverse themselves?

00:54:26.000 Or at this point, have they basically hit critical mass?

00:54:29.000 They've alienated everyone who earns.

00:54:31.000 And now they are in a full scale death spiral because they've convinced so many people in California that, again, the point is removing money from the people who earn.

00:54:40.000 The point is not how you spend the money.

00:54:42.000 Yeah.

00:54:43.000 I mean, look, I'm always optimistic.

00:54:45.000 Like you, I was born and raised in California.

00:54:47.000 I love the state, it's the most beautiful place on earth.

00:54:50.000 But it's going to be very difficult.

00:54:52.000 And the reason it's difficult, and this plays into the whole fraud story, is that all of this money, including billions of dollars in fraud, somehow trickles into the coffers of the labor unions, which Spend about a billion dollars a year on political activities, supporting campaigns, supporting these political movements.

00:55:12.000 And so California's kind of opposition needs to get very smart and launch a series of ballot measures to take money out of the hands of those unions, those NGOs, those publicly subsidized organizations that right now have a stranglehold on the state.

00:55:27.000 It's going to be hard, but I think California's productive class is starting to wake up.

00:55:32.000 If they don't make significant changes right now, if they don't challenge the one party power structure within the state, It's going to be very hard going in the future.

00:55:42.000 Well, that's Chris Ruffo.

00:55:44.000 He, of course, is a senior fellow and director of the Initiative on Critical Race Theory at Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal.

00:55:50.000 It's always excellent.

00:55:50.000 Go check out all of his work.

00:55:51.000 Chris, thanks so much for the time.

00:55:53.000 Really appreciate it.

00:55:54.000 Thank you.

00:55:56.000 Now, speaking of the nonsense promoted by Democrats on these sorts of matters, it is always amusing to me when Democrats suddenly become fiscal conservatives, but only for things like aggressive action against our.

00:56:09.000 Evil, tyrannical opponents. 0.84

00:56:11.000 So it's always very funny to me when Democrats who will spend money on transgender sex surgeries for illegal immigrants, they're like, we have to cut the military spending. 0.97

00:56:20.000 That's the thing. 0.99

00:56:20.000 It's, you know, every dollar that's being spent to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is a dollar that could be spent cutting the penis off an illegal immigrant. 0.99

00:56:30.000 You guys are brilliant. 1.00

00:56:31.000 Here's Hakeem Jeffries doing this routine yesterday.

00:56:34.000 We are now in the midst of an ongoing war of choice.

00:56:41.000 In the Middle East, that is reckless and costly, where billions of dollars are being spent every day, while Republicans are unwilling to spend a dime to make life more affordable for the American people. 0.87

00:56:59.000 So, again, this idea that he is determined to make life affordable for the American people, blue cities raise costs.

00:57:05.000 And one of the great lies in American politics is the idea that it is America's military that is our chief cost.

00:57:10.000 That is not true.

00:57:11.000 Even if you include all indirect costs to the federal government of all military spending, wars, veterans affairs, DHS anti terror efforts since 2000, over the last quarter century, that number pencils out to somewhere between $8 and $10 trillion.

00:57:25.000 How about just social welfare spending?

00:57:27.000 Again, that doesn't include state level, just federal social welfare spending.

00:57:31.000 $60 trillion.

00:57:33.000 $60 trillion.

00:57:35.000 But of course, Democrats believe that all of that is the stuff that's justified, not the collective defense, which is the reason you institute a government in the first place.

00:57:42.000 All righty.

00:57:42.000 Coming up, we'll jump into your questions.

00:57:45.000 Remember, you have to be a subscriber to have those questions answered.

00:57:48.000 Become a member.

00:57:49.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

00:57:51.000 Click the link in the description and join us.

The Ben Shapiro Show - April 17, 2026

WINNING: Trump CRUSHES Doubters, Opens Strait of Hormuz!

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