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Host
We have new details about exactly why the diplomatic track with Iran failed. Virginia Governor Abigail Spamberger digs in on protecting a violent criminal illegal immigrant who murdered a 41 year old mother. And Gavin Newsom steps in it. All of that and so much more today on 10 Minute Drill. Everybody get up. Get up.
Steve Witkoff
The story of America is the story of an adventure. I can hear you.
Host
The rest of the world hears you.
Conservative Commentator
We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free.
Host
First off today, the White House yesterday welcomed German Chancellor Friedrich Mears into the White House. And one thing that he discussed was Germany's support for President Trump's efforts in Iran.
Conservative Commentator
We are on the same page in terms of getting this terrible regime in Tehran away. And we will talk about the day after what will happen then if they are out.
Host
One thing we've been discussing throughout this week has been the failure of the diplomatic efforts. I personally believe President Trump wanted to show the world that he was leaving no stone unturned in their efforts to first find a diplomatic solution before bombing Iran and taking out their leadership. In an interview Monday night, Steve Witkoff laid out exactly how this fell apart.
Steve Witkoff
Jared and I opened up with the Iranian negotiators telling us they had the inalienable right to enrich all their nuclear fuel that they possessed. That's how they opened up. We, of course, responded that the President feels we have the inalienable right to stop you dead in your tracks. In that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly with, you know, no shame, that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60%. And they're aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs. And that was the beginning of their negotiating.
Host
So what Witkoff is saying there is that the Iranian negotiators came into this with the premise of we have the inalienable right to enrich uranium and build nuclear bombs. We have the immaterial to produce 11 of them. And they said we've evaded all sorts of different checks and protocols that would have prevented us from doing this. So for anyone who's still saying that Obama Iran deal could have prevented all of this, blah, blah, blah, we know that they've been working around that. And they told our negotiators at the outset of negotiations, this is a moot conversation because we have the right to do this and we already have the material for it. So that is part of what sets up exactly why that diplomatic solution fell apart, which is another reason that many countries in the region have rat rallied to the United States side against this because they know that not only was Iran capable of striking so many of them with their current missile supply, but they were also in the process of developing much more dangerous nuclear weapons. On Monday night, Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed members of the House and Senate leadership on the bombing of Iran and what led to it. And in one aside to reporters outside of this briefing, he talked about the role that Israel had played in setting this up. No, first.
Marco Rubio
Well, I mean, two things I would say. Number one is no matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen. That's the question of why now? But this operation needed to happen because Iran, in about a year or a year and a half, would cross the line of immunity, meaning they would have so many short range missiles, so many drones, that no one could do anything about it because they could hold the whole world hostage. Look at the damage they're doing now. And this is a weekend Iran. Imagine a year from now. So that had to happen. Obviously we were aware of Israeli intentions and understood what that would mean for us and we had to be prepared to act as a result of it. But this had to happen no matter what.
Host
Now, one thing that happened after this mini gaggle outside of that briefing was people took a small snippet of Rubio's comments about Israel's role out of context to suggest that Israel had said they were going to bomb Iran no matter what. And that is what led America to engage, that essentially Israel had forced the United States hand. And that narrative spread everywhere because Democrats have already tried to argue that Israel is controlling our foreign policy. Well, first, one more time, here's Rubio's answer to that issue.
Marco Rubio
No matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen. That's the question of why now.
Host
So what Rubio is clarifying there is Israel's role in this was more about the urgency. We don't have the right to tell Israel they can't defend themselves. And actually, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself clarified this point as well.
Steve Witkoff
Donald Trump is the strongest leader in the world.
Conservative Commentator
He does what he thinks is right for America. He does also what he thinks is
Steve Witkoff
right for future generations.
Host
And the White House wanting to make very clear that this narrative that was taken out of context by a lot of foreign policy reporters who should know better, also wanted to clarify this point
Steve Witkoff
based on the way the negotiation was going. I think they were going to attack first and I didn't want that to happen. So if anything, I might have forced Israel's hand.
Host
So first to Prime Minister Netanyahu's point, nobody's forcing Donald Trump's hand on anything. I think a lot of people over time have been frustrated that they couldn't get him to do what they wanted to do because he's got his own ideas. And in this case, as he said, he believes he may have forced Israel's hand because as those negotiations went poorly, as we heard from Steve Witkoff, it sounded like the Iranians were at the table just to delay, just to buy time, because they had no interest in actually talking about any kind of compromise deal. Once the president saw that he wanted to move fairly quickly, believing that Iran was just stalling so they could set up a larger attack on Israel and other people in the region. And what we've seen since Iran was first attacked, which is flailing attacks all over the region, everyone was right to be concerned. On Monday night, the United States Supreme Court put a hold on California's effort to have their public schools participate in secretly transing kids without informing parents. This from Kerry Severino. The Supreme Court just put on hold California's law requiring public schools to secretly transition children without their parents knowledge. The liberal Ninth Circuit disregarded the court's ruling in Mahmoud, the case from Maryland. Today. The justices reaffirmed the principles of its landmark ruling and said California's law substantially interferes with the right of parents to guide the religious development of their children. So again, this goes back to a case where Gavin Newsom and his administration have been wanting to empower public schools to keep secrets from parents about their children's gender identities in schools. This has been challenged numerous times, but it comes back to the idea that liberals believe that schools are in a better position to help guide the upbringing of children than their own parents if those parents don't share the same ideology about transgender politics that that school does. And there's already been instances of California removing children from their parents custody if they didn't agree to things like dangerous permanent sex change surgeries and things like that. So this issue is not going away. But I do think it puts Gavin Newsom in an interesting spot because in his own podcast tour of trying to be a normal cool guy, he's taken both sides of this issue. Or when he met with Charlie Kirk, he talked about how strange some of the transgender politics were when he spoke to Ben Shapiro. He took a lot of heat for trying to argue that men could be girls and girls could be boys. So this is one we will continue to monitor in the context of the larger political dynamics in the country. On a topic that I always enjoy covering, the Democrat Civil War. Axios has a really, really great look at how this is playing out. Democrats midterm Civil War is costing the party a fortune. One thing we've been Talking about on 10 Minute Drill is the fact that far left is on the rise in the Democrat Party. Leaders like Zoran Mamdami have disciples that are popping up in Democrat primary elections across the country. And Democrat leadership in Washington believes that if those primaries go the wrong way and they nominate radicals, they might lose potentially winnable House seats. So this is from Andrew Solander from Axios. Axios crunched the numbers. 30 House Dems are facing at least one primary challenger who raised $100,000 last year. Roughly a dozen have been outraised in all these races have a price tag of $64 million. House Dems are not happy about it. This speaks to a larger issue for Democrats that the small dollar dominance is such a huge force in Democrat politics. If you say crazy things, you'll find cat ladies and wine moms online will throw a few bucks at you and next thing you know these people are raising millions of dollars and becoming primary forces, even though people in their own district probably think they're a little bit crazy. So we because it has major implications for the midterms in November if Democrats continue to get behind radical lunatics. In yesterday's episode we talked about this terrible story from Virginia in which a 41 year old mother was murdered by an illegal immigrant who had previously been arrested 30 times. Media has been pressing the Spanberger administration on how this was allowed to happen. Reporter Nick Minock posted this Right now,
Nick Minock
the U.S. department of Homeland Security is calling on Virginia Governor Abigail Spamberger to notify ICE before Fairfax county officials release a man who's accused of murdering a woman at a Fairfax county bus stop. Quote DHS should request a signed judicial warrant to ensure this violent criminal is deported. I'll read that again. DHS should request a signed judicial warrant to ensure this violent criminal is deported.
Host
Now Bill Melugian at Fox added some helpful color on what this actually means in practice. Governor Spamberger's office tells Nick Minnock she won't honor an ICE detainer for an illegal alien with 30 plus prior arrests, including rape, who's accused of murdering a woman at a bus stop. She wants ICE to get a judicial warrant, which isn't possible unless there is a suspicion of a federal crime. Murder, rape, et cetera are largely state crimes. It's remarkable how few politicians understand how this works. A federal judicial warrant can only be signed off by a federal judge if there's a probable cause that a federal crime has been committed. Now, Bill believes that Abigail Spamberger and her administration just don't understand how this works, that they're throwing up hoops that are impossible to overcome to try and deport people. I think Bill is being very charitable here. I think Abigail Spamberger knows exactly what she's doing. Her first action in office was to make it more difficult for ICE to deport anyone. So it makes sense that she'd be throwing up hurdles to try and make it harder to deport somebody even if they became convicted of 30 crimes, including rape, and now are guilty of murdering a woman. Abigail Spamberger's priority is helping that violent criminal, illegal immigrant instead of deporting and getting these people off of the streets to keep her own constituents safe. For you can't make it up segment today, we have a funny nugget from California Governor Gavin Newsom. First, it's been very interesting to see a number of Democrats in the wake of the initial bombing of Iran say this might drive up energy prices. It's interesting because any of us who have followed Democrats over the last several years have done everything in their power to drive up energy prices. And now it feels like they might believe they can use this as a scapegoat for their own policies that made energy more expensive. I give you Gavin Newsom.
Conservative Commentator
Energy prices are up across the globe. Oil prices are up. Gas prices are going up. Every $10 increase in a barrel is roughly $0.24 per gallon that you'll be paying more because of Trump's war.
Host
Now imagine the gall of this guy who has done everything in his power to make energy more expensive. California has to import gas through the Bahamas because they have killed their own ability to refine. They have chased two refineries out of the state. Well, before we did anything with Iran. California was Projected to have $8.50 gas this summer intentionally. That was not an accident. That is because of policies that Gavin Newsom himself and their insane crackpot legislature passed. So when Gavin Newsom talks about energy prices, we're all trying to find the guy who did this. We find ourselves using that for Gavin Newsom quite a bit. That is all the time we have to for today. Thank you for joining us on 10 Minute Drill. Please like subscribe, tell your friends, leave us a review and have a great day.
Date: March 4, 2026
Host: Matt Whitlock
Episode Theme:
Matt Whitlock delivers a brisk breakdown of the biggest stories in U.S. and world politics of the week, with a focus on why the Iran diplomatic process collapsed, the intensifying Democratic “civil war,” and political controversies involving Virginia Governor Spamberger and California Governor Newsom.
This episode centers on the newly revealed behind-the-scenes details of the failed Iran diplomacy, examines the growing and costly rifts within the Democratic Party, and highlights polarizing policy decisions concerning immigration and education in Virginia and California. Matt Whitlock provides insider commentary, notable quotes, and critical context for each topic—all in a tone that's brisk, irreverent, and pointed.
“Jared and I opened up with the Iranian negotiators telling us they had the inalienable right to enrich all their nuclear fuel that they possessed ... they controlled 460 kilograms of 60%. And they're aware that could make 11 nuclear bombs. …”
“No matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen … Iran, in about a year or a year and a half, would cross the line of immunity ... [They] could hold the whole world hostage.”
“Based on the way the negotiation was going... If anything, I might have forced Israel's hand.”
“Her first action in office was to make it more difficult for ICE to deport anyone. So it makes sense that she'd be throwing up hurdles to try and make it harder to deport somebody even if they became convicted of 30 crimes, including rape, and now are guilty of murdering a woman.”
“Every $10 increase in a barrel is roughly $0.24 per gallon that you'll be paying more because of Trump’s war.”
Steve Witkoff on Iran’s opening negotiation ([01:24]):
“They [Iran] controlled 460 kilograms of 60%. And they're aware that that could make 11 nuclear bombs. And that was the beginning of their negotiating.”
Marco Rubio on inevitability of U.S. action ([03:19]):
“No matter what, ultimately this operation needed to happen ... Imagine a year from now. So that had to happen.”
Steve Witkoff on U.S./Israel dynamic ([04:57]):
"Based on the way the negotiation was going ... If anything, I might have forced Israel's hand."
Matt Whitlock on Gavin Newsom’s energy blame ([11:59]):
“Imagine the gall of this guy who has done everything in his power to make energy more expensive ... California has to import gas through the Bahamas because they have killed their own ability to refine.”
Whitlock maintains a fast-paced, irreverent, and frequently sarcastic tone, skewering political opponents and highlighting contradictions. Commentary is direct and spiced with political insider knowledge and cultural references, making even heavy stories more accessible and engaging.
In this episode, Matt Whitlock breaks down why Iran negotiations failed, how the US (not Israel) spearheaded recent military action, and why infighting and radicalism threaten Democratic midterm hopes. He also spotlights legal and policy controversies involving governors in Virginia and California, punctuating the discussion with pointed humor and critical analysis.
For further deep dives, listen to the full episode or check back for future 10 Minute Drill rundowns.