Mary Margaret Olahan (4:35)

He.

Ben Shapiro (4:36)

In the Epstein case, she was not used by prosecutors anywhere because she was an unreliable witness. And it turns out that many of the details that she gave didn't match actual timelines. That does not mean that she wasn't victimized. You know, obviously Prince Andrew paid her a pretty sizable settlement in a civil suit. It doesn't mean that she. She didn't have a horrible and terrible life in which she was treated just horrifically. And obviously she committed suicide. It does mean that if we are attempting to elicit information on what exactly happened, you have to base that on the most verifiable possible evidence. Generally speaking, with any case in 2001, there's a very famous photo, of course, of Virginia Giuffre at Galan Maxwell's home in London with Prince Andrew. Andrew flew on Epstein's private planes. We know this Giy alleged abuse and eventually she filed a civil suit against then Prince Andrew. He settled that with her in 2022, and he paid her millions of dollars, possibly up to $16 million to settle that lawsuit. Andrew was photographed walking with Epstein in December 2010. That was after he pled guilty on that charge of sex trafficking of a minor. He even offered to have Epstein to Buckingham Palace. Now, Andrew has never been criminally charged for the allegations with regard to Virginia Jiufrey. In October 2021, London's Metro Police said they did not have sufficient grounds to prosecute him. In the uk when the DOJ investigated Epstein back in the late aughts, they didn't end up charging Andrew. So what is he being arrested based upon? If you had to guess. And of course, at this point we're waiting for more information. If you had to guess, it is very, very likely that he is being prosecuted for the same sorts of activities for which Peter Mandelson, the former ambassador from Britain to the United States, is now being investigated. That is to say, he was probably passing financial and insider information to Jeffrey Epstein. The police have not made clear yet exactly what the specificity of the charges is. Their statement says, quote, as part of the investigation, we have arrested a man in his 60s from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk. The man remains in police custody at this time. We will not be naming the arrested man as per national guidance. Please also remember that this case is now active, so care should be taken with any publication to avoid being in contempt of court. So, I mean, no details being provided at all what we do know, however, is that emails that were revealed in court in the correspondence between Epstein and Andrew in that latest tranche of Epstein files suggest that Prince Andrew shared confidential UK trade reports and official itineraries with Epstein while he was Britain's Special Representative for International trade. This, I would guess, is the locus of these charges because it fulfills the elements that we're talking about. One, he was holding an actual public office at the time. It wasn't just a member of the Royal Family, it was an actual public office. Two, he was sharing confidential UK information, allegedly with Epstein. And this is why I'm comparing it to the Peter Mandelson scandal. Peter Mandelson, of course, was the British Ambassador to Washington. But years and years and years ago, when he was working in actual official facilities with the UK government, he was apparently passing inside information about UK government decisions to Epstein, who then may have traded on that information and evidence ought to be our standard whenever we adjudicate these cases, either in the court of public opinion or when it comes to an actual court of law. What we do know is that he was engaged in high level financial impropriety. That's the stuff where there really is a fair bit of evidence that he was engaged in financial impropriety. The New York Times, as we've talked about at length on the show, did a full scale rundown of what he did during his early years to get rich. And the answer is some pretty scurvy stuff. He was bilking billionaires out of their money. He was conning them, he was telling them. And he was. He was uncovering funding while simultaneously stealing money from them, allegedly. Right. That we know he was doing. There's actually tons and tons of evidence of financial impropriety and financial law breaking with regard to Jeffrey Epstein. And of course there's evidence that he was trafficking minors to himself and that he was trafficking in overage women to himself. But the evidence that he was trafficking minors to other people, that evidence is in short supply at this point. That doesn't mean that it won't ever emerge or that people won't uncover it or anything like that. I'm just giving you the state of the evidence as it currently stands. And speculation is not a substitute for evidence. Well, some of this came to a head yesterday when billionaire former Victoria's Secret CEO Lex Wesner testified before the House Oversight Committee. He actually testified that he was conned by Jeffrey Epstein. He denied wrongdoing. Wexner, of course, has been under fire over his many appearances in the Doj records on Epstein. He denied allegations that he was Epstein's co conspirator. There have been allegations with regard to Wexner in some of the documents that the FBI considered him a secondary co conspirator with Epstein. But it was never made clear in those documents why they said that or what they meant by that. Did they mean that he was funding Epstein's lifestyle? Did they mean that he. He himself, was trafficking? None of that was evidenced in the actual papers that have been released so far. In his prepared statement, he told lawmakers he never witnessed nor had any knowledge of Epstein's criminal activity. And in fact, he claims essentially that. That he was victimized by Epstein to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. Wexner, in his prepared statement, said, I have done nothing wrong. I have nothing to hide. I completely and irrevocably cut ties with Epstein nearly 20 years ago when I learned that he was an abuser, a crook, and a liar. And let me be crystal clear. I never witnessed nor had any knowledge of Epstein's criminal activity. A video and transcript apparently are soon to be released. Representative Robert Garcia of California told reporters during a break in the deposition. Wexner was trying to downplay how close his relationship with Epstein was. Garcia said, there would be no Epstein Island. There'd be no Epstein plane. There would be no money to traffic women and girls. Mr. Epstein would not be the wealthy man he was without the support of Lex Wessner. Now, again, what's interesting about even that statement from Garcia suggests that this is mostly about the money passing from Wexner to Epstein, not about specific evidenced allegations of Wexner engaging in sexual impropriety. Yeah, maybe he did, but the evidence actually has to be presented at a certain point. I know that we live in a world in which asking for evidence for propositions is considered passe, and that if you even ask for evidence, then this makes you a co conspirator in. In whatever gigantic theory people have constructed. This is why, for example, Michael Tracy, who's actually been doing granular work going through these documents, is now being labeled speciously as somebody being paid off by foreign powers or something for the great sin of actually looking at the evidence. And again, Michael Tracy and I disagree on nearly everything politically, but Michael Tracy is actually looking at evidence. And I think that when we are looking and at very, very large allegations, groundbreaking allegations, allegations that basically our entire society is run on the back of satanic pedophile cults, it behooves us when there's an outsized allegation to find outsized reams of evidence to support those allegations. And then if the evidence shows that's what's happening, then obviously that is something not only worthy of note, but worthy of panic. But this is why we ought to have evidence, because otherwise you end up in a bizarre world in which allegations are tantamount to actual condemnation. Now, when regard to Andrew, allegations are now tantamount to criminal charges. And we'll have to see the nature of those criminal charges again, based on the information we have and the evidence, the actual evidence in the Epstein files with regard to Andrew and the fact he was not prosecuted over Giuffre and the allegations there for decades, my strong suspicion is he's being prosecuted over passing essentially inside information when he was a trade representative to Epstein. The reason I focus in on this is because once you have a standard that basically any allegation is tantamount to guilt, any allegation, that's how you end up with Representative Ted Lieu, a complete dunderheaded, going out in Congress and suggesting that Trump is raping children. I mean, again, he has just as much evidence for this proposition as people have of evidence of a gigantic transnational conspiracy run by intelligence agencies to traffic underage people to prominent people and then blackmail them, which is to say none. Here. Here is Ted Lieu.

Mary Margaret Olahan (13:00)

Why are Republicans so interested in. In Bill and Hillary Clinton is because they're trying to distract from the fact that Donald Trump is in the Epstein files thousands and thousands of times.

Ben Shapiro (13:13)

In those files, there's highly disturbing allegations of Donald Trump raping children, of Donald

Mary Margaret Olahan (13:20)

Trump threatening to kill children.

Ben Shapiro (13:24)

So I encourage the press to go look at these allegations. Okay, so again, this is ridiculous. And by the way, it is also ridiculous that Ro Khanna did the same routine the other day. So you'll recall that I said that if Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie had actual evidence of men trafficking in underage girls with Jeffrey Epstein, and they said that the names had been redacted and been hidden, they should actually just go and announce that on the floor of the House because you actually do have congressional privilege to be able to do that sort of stuff without being sued. And then Rokhanna actually went and did it, and we played it on the show, him naming all of these guys. Well, it turns out that there was only one problem. As it turns out, these six people that he named were not actually guilty of anything like what he sort of suggested they were guilty of. He admitted this in a tweet, quote, I appreciate reporting, confirming today that Salvatore Nuara Zurab, Michaladzi, Leonid Leonov and Nicola Caputo were just part of a photo lineup and are not connected to Epstein's crimes. But that was after he literally went on the floor of Congress and read their names into the Congressional Record in order to imply that they were part of a sex trafficking scheme. And then he blamed the DOJ for adapting their names. Well, I mean, maybe the reason their names were redacted in the first place is because there was no evidence they'd done anything wrong. And when you unredact the names, it turns out that a bunch of people like, for example, Ro Khanna, are going to cynically play on that in order to slander people. And that there is something that is peculiarly dangerous about the way that we are now approaching the release of the Epstein information. Not that the information shouldn't be released, but if the way that law enforcement now goes about its business is they gather millions of pages of documents on alleged crimes, and instead of guarding the people who they have no evidence of crimes being committed by, instead of guarding those people, instead of redacting that information, instead of actually protecting the victims, you just release everything into the public sphere. I wonder what you do about, you know, anything. Like the basic right to privacy for people who are not Jeffrey Epstein, but whose names are in the files. Is that a thing we even care about? Maybe we don't care about that anymore. Okay, fine. But at that point, we should basically just make public all IRS filings. Why not? What if we can just pass a congressional act to force the IRS to release tax returns? Is that a thing also that we can do? I understand that we all want the. We all want the real evidence and all the information. The way this has been handled from soup to nuts, let us say, has not been a general boon to humanity. It was retailed extraordinarily poorly by the Attorney General, Pam Bondi. It was retailed before that in terms of broad, outsized theories by people who really didn't know very much. The original sort of will release nothing but a small press release, but we won't explain what we're doing. Release was a disaster area. The gigantic release of millions of pages of documents into the public sphere without any real effort at fully redacting people who are innocent or any explanation of what was being released that turns out to be a disaster area. Also, it's hard to spot a place here where there has not been a pretty significant misstep already. Meanwhile, we now have a spate of fake victims. You know, victimhood is in short supply in a, in a free and prosperous West. It really is. There are people obviously who are victimized by systems, but the number of prominent people who claim to be victims of systems, let's just say that the supply is overwhelming. And it is certainly it is basically a Gucci bag on the streets of New York. It is fake pretending to be real. These are TEMU victims. We'll get to more on this breaking news in a moment. First, you know what holiday our sponsor, Pure Talk celebrates this month? Well, President's Day. Because they believe wireless service should only cost you a couple of presidents, a Jackson and a Lincoln, 25 bucks a month for unlimited talk text, plenty of data. And even though the holiday may have passed, the Pure Talk savings have not. Think about it. That's the cost of one or two meals out versus the hundreds. Big wireless charges families every single month. There's no reason wireless service needs to be that expensive. What makes Pure Talk different goes beyond just price. 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Here's the thing about phytonutrients. They're these naturally occurring plant nutrients in whole foods that actually give fruits and veggies their color, taste and smell. And honestly, if you're eating something with vibrant color and real flavor, that's a pretty good sign you're getting genuine phytonutrients. Now what Balance of Nature does is they take all that produce and then they run it through a specialized vacuum cold process that keeps everything stable. Then they powder it down without any binders, fillers, flow agents, Just the real stuff. Their whole health system is essentially a value bundle that combines their fruits and veggies with their fiber and spice supplements. So you're getting 47 different ingredients, fruits, veggies, spices, fibers, along with all those naturally occurring phytonutrients every single day. Balance of Nature is fabulous. So I bring it on the road with me. I got to stay healthy. I got a lot of things going on in my life. I can't afford to fall under the weather. Balance of nature makes it happen for me. So whether you've been on the fence for a long time or it's the first time you're hearing about them, I recommend you head on over to balance of nature.com or the whole Health System supplements as a preferred customer today. And let us point out one Teemo victim, James Talarico. So James Talarico, of course, has been making hay over the allegation made by Stephen Colbert that basically he was banned from CBS because the Trump administration couldn't stand him being out there in public. That's really ridiculous. It turns out that the FCC gave an instruction to CBS that if James Talarico appeared and was given a softball interview by Stephen Colbert, Jasmine Crockett would similarly have to be given a softball interview by Stephen Colbert under their equal times laws. Now, again, I think equal times laws are stupid. We should do away with them. But that is currently the law. And CBS said instead of airing the Talarico interview and then that would forced us to sacrifice airtime on Jasmine Crockett, the producers of the Late show with Colbert said no. What we'll do instead is we'll just release the talarico interview on YouTube. Now, has that been like a horrifyingly terrible thing for James Talarico? Far from it. Dude's been raising money hand over fist. His interview has been viewed 7.4 million times on YouTube, which for the record, is way more than it would have been viewed on cbs. Way more. He has apparently raked in two and a half million dollars in fundraising in the aftermath of this pseudo scandal. Talarico crowed in a statement, quote, this is a campaign of, by and for the people. So I'm proud that neighbors from all across our state and country stood together to defend free speech. This is the most dangerous kind of cancel culture, the kind that comes right from the top. A threat to one of our First Amendment rights. As a threat to all of our First Amendment rights. Well, none of us have a First Amendment right to appear on Stephen Colbert's show. So there, there Is that. And also it was the producers of the Late show who made that call. CBS has flatly denied the Colbert version of the story. Jasmine Crockett, by the way, said, quote, the federal government did not shut down the segment. She said, it's our understanding that either Colbert or CBS decided not to put the Talarico interview on TV because of a fear that the FCC may say something to them and that there have been, there may have been advice to just have me on and they could clear the equal time issue. It was my understanding, says Jasmine Crockett, that someone somewhere decided we don't want to do that. Instead we're just going to do it this way. So in other words, they wanted to have Talarico on, but not Jasmine Crockett. Disadvantaging Jasmine Crockett. And then they use that as a pseudo scandal in order to fundraise for James Talarico. This has not stopped the media from going whole hog against Trump. CNN's Nico Perino slammed trunk over the Talarico controversy. I do think that the administration has come out for these late night talk show hosts. We saw that with Jimmy Kimmel, Colbert, his run, I think, ends in May. And Brendan Carr has his marching orders. He attended government meetings with a pin of Donald Trump's face on it, a gold pin. And President Trump repeatedly truths out criticisms of these hosts. And these hosts are perceived to be left wing. I think they probably are majority left wing. And so that's why he's going after late night and daytime talk shows and not conservative talk radio. Okay. So I mean, again, I think there's a strong case that we should get rid of the equal time rules altogether. They are a vestigial organ of free speech regulation. But pretending that somehow Talarico was the victim in all this is really silly. This whole thing was basically ginned up by the Late Show's producers in order to benefit Talarico. Precisely the opposite of what is currently being claimed. Meanwhile, FCC chair Brendan Carr, he is going after Colbert. And yeah, I will say that the optics here for Brendan Carr. I mean, I don't know how many times Brendan Carr has to go after late night hosts before he sort of appears to be over his skis. I just, I don't, I don't see the win here, particularly for Brendan Gar. But here we go. Sad. What he probably views as a long and distinguished career in the limelight, he sees that that limelight is fading, is coming to an end. That's got to be a difficult time for him. I get It. But that doesn't change the facts of the what happened here. I mean, he is right about that. It does not change the facts of what happened here. Now, if you want to talk actual cancel culture, how about the fact that Barry Weiss was supposed to give a lecture on the future of journalism at UCLA and she actually was cancelled. Like full scale cancelled. Not like it was it happened and then it was broadcast to YouTube to the tune of millions of dollars raised. Nope, it was actually canceled amid student protests and online criticism. The annual lecture is held in remembrance of Daniel Pearl, that is the Wall Street Journal journalist who is beheaded by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002. It will be rescheduled for some unspecified date. A reason was not provided for the cancellation. Code Pink, which allegedly receives foreign funding, organized a student action to cancel the event back in January 2nd that the heckler's veto taking shape. Meanwhile, other fake victims James Talo, a fake victim. Other fake victims Democrats claiming that President Trump is a racist because he is apparently deploying help to clean up the giant poop spill in the Potomac. The Washington Post reported three days ago that federal authorities will respond to a major sewage spill that occurred four weeks ago in the Potomac river, which flows between Maryland, Washington and Virginia. In a post on his social media network, Trump said that the Federal Emergency Management Agency would play a key role in a response involving management, direction and coordination to protect the Potomac. Trump blamed local Democrat leaders for gross mismanagement. In his post, he singled out Maryland Governor Wes Moore, suggesting that he was incapable of handling the situation. Trump said, I don't like the fact he did a horrible job with the pipes. I'm going to have to get the federal government involved in getting it fixed because he can't fix anything. And then Westmore tried to claim that it was actually the federal government's fault, which is weird because it actually is not under the federal government's. True. So Wes Moore is now victim too. Everybody is a victim. So here is Westmore trying to run for president in 2028. I think that is a quixotic run by West Moore. I do not think that he has it, whatever it is. And he says he's a victim of President Trump now. Sure, it's it's his state that is pumping raw sewage into the rivers, but it is, it is President Trump who is the real exploiter here. I think the president just seems to have a very real issue with the fact that I do not bow to him and I will stand up to him because I will always defend my people. But but, you know, the fact that I'm the only black governor in this country and the fact that he seems to have a real issue with me, I think that's, that's, that's an issue he's got to take up. Well, it's very sad. Well, what, what a victim once more is also, by the way, West Moore claims that. That President Trump may be a racist because he is, quote, assaulting employment opportunities for black women. This is the, the, this is ridiculous. I'm sorry. It's ridiculous. The employment, the unemployment rate in the country right now is 4.3%. He's not undercutting black women. If, if the claim by West Moore is that government employment has been cut in certain areas and that demographically, this disproportionately affects black women, that does not mean that Trump is targeting black women in particular by cutting federal jobs. But here is Wes Moore doing the victimhood routine. Well, I mean, he also has spent the past year making a direct assault on scholarships for HBCUs that the past year we have seen the greatest assault on unemployment for black women that our country has ever seen. That he's spending his time attacking history and banning books. I, you know, I honestly think that, you know, it's. It's a question not just for the president, but frankly, I think it's also a question for white America if they are looking at his actions. And I think that's something that people need to wrestle with. Yeah, I'm sorry. Claiming victimhood on behalf of black women everywhere because President Trump is cutting federal jobs is truly silly. Especially the same day that President Trump was celebrating Black History Month over at the White House. Here was our apparently incredibly racist president yesterday. Black Americans have stepped forward to defend the flag and to defend our country like few others, really feel like few others. And you've never really been given the recognition that you should get for that. You know that, Ben. They never. I don't think a lot of people have given the kind of recognition, but everyone knows all about the Tuskegee Airmen. They were great and amazing. The Buffalo Soldiers. Do you know the Buffalo Soldiers? Good stuff, right? Black leaders from Frederick Douglass to Martin Luther King, Right. Little relative over here have made our country freer. And really what, what they've really done is made life more just. What a racist. I mean, truly, that is egregiously KKK type racist stuff. There so many victims here. One reporter took the opportunity to ask about whether he is a racist, since he has been called racist so many times. Where or when does the president believe he's been falsely called racist.

Mary Margaret Olahan (28:24)

You're kidding, right? I will pull you plethora of examples. I'm going to get my team in that room to start going through the Internet of radical Democrats throughout the years, Ed, who have accused this president falsely of being a racist. And I'm sure there's many people in this room and on network television across the country who have accused him of the same. In fact, I know that because I've seen it with my own eyes.

Ben Shapiro (28:49)

Now, that is Caroline Levitt, of course, being asked about Trump's supposed racism. I mean, one D.C. resident gave a very live speech at this, at this event at the White House. Her grandson was killed in violence in Washington, D.C. and here she was raving about President Trump again. So much racism just pouring out of President Trump here. And then we need national God, and

Mary Margaret Olahan (29:11)

which we did years ago.

Ben Shapiro (29:14)

He brought it on. I love him. I don't want to hear nothing you got to say about that racist stuff.

Mary Margaret Olahan (29:22)

And don't be looking at me on

Ben Shapiro (29:24)

the news, hating on me, because I'm standing up for somebody that deserves to be standing up for. Get off the man's back. Let him do his job. He's doing the right thing. Back up off of it.

Mary Margaret Olahan (29:35)

And grandma said it.

Ben Shapiro (29:43)

I mean, look at that vicious racist right there. There's so many victims, so many victims. Democrats also claiming, of course, victimhood on behalf of trans people everywhere. Pramila Jayapal, the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, yesterday suggested that conservatives are jealous of trans people, which is. That's a hell of a take to trans people everywhere.

Mary Margaret Olahan (30:05)

I also want you to know this. Those people are threatened by your strength, by your joy in being fully who you are. Those who fight against trans people are just jealous of the freedom that they have taken to be fully who they are. And so those people just want to destroy that rather than imagine what it would be like to be fully who they are.

Ben Shapiro (30:38)

Okay, that's a. That's a take. It's not a good take, but it's. It's a take. Conservatives are jealous of people who are suffering from a DSM 5 delusional disorder in which people wish to mutilate their own bodies. That. That is one. Because of freedom. Okay, sure, why not? But the litany of fake victimhood goes on. U2 has now released a song in honor of all of the fake victims. They've released an anti ice song which soared up the charts. We are now going to get. I guess this is the thing now. I guess that every artist from the 1980s and early 1990s is now going to be releasing protest songs as though they're like Bob Dylan. Okay, let's see. Let's see it. YouTube. This is a terrible song. You. This song is awful. My goodness. I'll admit I'm not a YouTube afficado. Is. Is all their music this bad or is this uniquely bad? I legitimately don't. I love you more than hate, loves war. What this is, this is trash. The real victim here is my ears. That is the real victim here. My goodness. And in honor of the. Of the fake victims of ice and here I'm speaking about people who are here in the country illegally who are now being deported. Zormandani has now appointed an abolished ICE radical as the New York City immigration chief. How could it go wrong? I listen, I will admit to a sick sort of enjoyment in the fact that Democrats voted for this and now they get it. According to the Daily Wire, New York City's Democratic Socialist Mayor, Zoran Mamdani just tapped a new immigration officer to his administration who previously advocated to abolish ICE and has cozied up to radical figures and organizations. Mamdani announced on Tuesday he had appointed Faiza Ali as commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs. She says that she is the proud daughter of immigrant parents from Pakistan who came to New York City with courage, an unshakable belief in possibility and the determination to build a future here. Also, she called to abolish ICE in 2019 and she was arrested during a protest in 2018 where she also called for the end of ICE. So she is now going to be a special advisor on immigrants affairs. Man, New York, you asked for it and you got it. I'd be remiss here if I did not name among the fake victims litany here, Tucker Carlson, who decided to Greta Thunberg himself, you know, claim that he was basically kidnapped by the Israelis. So. So Tucker Carlson was invited by the ambassador of the United States to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to do an interview, quasi debate. Apparently that's supposed to be released sometime on Friday. And Tucker Carlson then flew into Israel and did not get off the tarmac. Basically he flew into Ben Gurion Airport. He was invited by a myriad of Christian groups to come visit with them and hear the actual experiences of Christians in Israel. He didn't want to do that. Instead of he imported an anti Israel activist to do an interview with him at the airport. Apparently. Apparently he never left the airport. He flew private in. He he then was at the part of the airport that is reserved for VIPs. You can pay, like an additional fee to be processed, not through sort of the main. The main terminal at Ben Gurion Airport. And then he just stayed there for a few hours, did the interview, and left. True courage of his convictions. But you know that that would be silly enough. What was truly silly is that then he leaked to a man who used to work for him a completely false story. Just a complete nonsense story. So a reporter named Philip Nieto, who literally used to work for Carlson but now works for the Daily Mail, posted an exclusive quote, tucker Carlson detained in Israel. Journalist quote, dragged into interrogation room as explosive interview sparks diplomatic firestorm. Nothing of this is true. None of it. It is just a lie. It is an absolute overt lie because Tucker is looking for some sense of victimhood from Israel because of course, he despises the state of Israel. Like truly despises it, clearly, which is why he lies routinely about it. In any case, according to this piece, Carlson exclusively told the Daily Mail, I. E. His former employee, that shortly after the interview, Israeli officials confiscated his passport and hauled one of his colleagues off to an interrogation room. Men who identified themselves as airport security took our passports, hauled our executive producer into a side room and then demanded to know what we spoke to Ambassador Huckabee about. Carlson told the Daily Mail. It was bizarre. We're now out of the country. Oh, man. The. The serious security, I mean, he barely survived. Okay, so as somebody who flies into and out of Israel pretty frequently, here's how it works. Tucker was not even in the main terminal. Tucker was in the VIP terminal. In the VIP terminal, where you have basically all the perks and amenities available, you have privacy. There are rooms with actual, like, lie down couches, coffee machines, like actual layouts of food. It's like a first class lounge, and you pay an extra fee to do it. So that's where Tucker was. And when he says that someone took his passport, what they mean is you go to the counter and then they take your passport to check to make sure that it is in compliance with all national international law, and then they return your passport to you. That's what he means. As for the detention, what he means by detention is that apparently one of his producers who may or may not have been in the VIP section, was taken aside and asked a few questions and then was let go. This happens all the time. Anyone who has flown ll knows this. He was flying private. So my guess is that it was even less than that. It has happened to me, it has happened to my wife, it has happened to our nanny. It has happened to pretty much every producer on this show. It is not a detention. It is not an arrest. It is not a grilling. It is not a third degree. No one's getting beaten with hoses. It's just horse. But Tucker is the Greta Thunberg of Israel floating his flotilla of stupidity over toward Israel to try and claim that what these you think the Israeli government is going to detain Tucker Carlson? You think they're that stupid? Even if you think they're nefarious, which they are not, you think that they attribute to them some modicum of intelligence at the very least, you think they would do that. It's just ridiculous. Apparently Mike Huckabee then came out with his own statement, quote, everyone who comes in and out of Israel, every country for that matter, has passports checked and routinely asked security questions. Even me going in and out with diplomatic passport and diplomatic visa because Tucker is a liar who lies a lot. It is also worth noting here that, by the way, Israeli security when it comes to airports is really high. I wonder why? Could it be? There's a history of hijacking of Israeli airplanes. In fact, one of the factors that is very frequently used when passports are checked is what countries you have been to. If you have been to a wide variety of, for example, radical Muslim countries over the course of the last year, that might be a reason for them to check your passport. But again, nothing that Tucker is saying here is true. He is the Jussie Smollett of airport security. Apparently two airport attendants from El Al came out and yelled this is BB Country. And then they hit him with bleach as he ate his kosher subway sandwich. The fact that people take this person intellectually seriously remains a something beyond amusement. So not a gigantic shock here, but fake victimhood is the order of the day. And meanwhile in the Middle east, obviously a lot of talk about what's going on in Iran. The United States has mobilized exorbitant resources in the Middle east as Iran continues to stymie and stonewall on its nuclear program, ballistic missile program and support for terrorism. According to the Wall Street Journal, Iran's leaders want to reach a nuclear deal with the United States, but they are also rushing to prepare for war in case talks between the countries fail. Tehran is deploying its forces, dispersing decision making authority, fortifying its nuclear sites and expanding its crackdown on domestic dissent. The moves reflect its leaders beliefs. The survival of the regime itself is at stake. Domestically, the Islamic Republic is more vulnerable than it has been in decades. Its leaders are facing widespread popular discontent over worsening economic pictures and the mass killing of protesters last month. Apparently, according to Farzan Sabet, an analyst at the Geneva Graduate Institute in Switzerland, Iran is preparing for strikes by putting its security and political leadership on high alert to prevent decapitation and to protect its nuclear facilities. Iranian officials are still again stonewalling on their nuclear program. They're not going to kill their nuclear program. They're not going to kill their ballistic missile program. They're not going to kill their support for terrorism. It is literally the only thing that they can take back to their military infrastructure. Understand that when it comes to repressive authoritarian regimes, the number one thing you have to do is please your military apparatus. If you don't do that, you're out in your ear. And so the ayatollahs understand that money has to keep pouring into the military apparatus to keep bribing top level military men to support the regime. And that means supporting terrorism abroad means supporting the development of these weapons programs. Iran's leaders are preparing for an attack that could disrupt its chain of command. Naval units of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard were deployed this week to the Strait of Hormuz. By the way, if the United States decided to sink that fleet, that would take approximately three minutes flat. There is strong evidence that Chinese are actually providing some surveillance apparatus to the Iranians. China, of course, is a support system for the Iranians. A Russian warship also arrived at the Strait of Hormuz and docked at the Iranian port town of Bandar Abbas ahead of a military exercise planned for Thursday. And those exercises are supposed to be taking place not far from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln sailing off the coast of Oman. Iran is also attempting to harden its nuclear sites because they're afraid that the United States will once again bomb those nuclear sites, according to CBS News and Jennifer Jacobs reporting. Top national security officials have told Trump that the military is ready for potential strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend, but the timeline for any action is likely to extend beyond Saturday or Sunday. According to sources, Trump has not yet made a final decision. Over the next three days, the Pentagon is moving some personnel out of the Middle east region ahead of potential action or counterattacks by Iran. That doesn't necessarily mean that action is imminent, apparently. One source says that the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is planning to visit Israel and meet with Netanyahu in about two weeks for further discussions. The United States currently has the most air power in The Mideast since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials say that the firepower will give the U.S. the option of carrying out a sustained weeks long air war against Iran instead of a one and done midnight hammer type strike. Unclear whether Trump is going to pull the trigger here. It seems to me that just on a geopolitical level, for Trump not to pull any trigger here would be an open sign to America's enemies that it is time to go. This is the box that the president has sort of created for himself geopolitically. The president came out and he said if you shoot protesters in the streets, there will be serious consequences. Stay in the streets, help is on the way. If help is not forthcoming and instead what ends up coming out of this is some sort of weak style Obama deal in which Iran makes a bunch of pledges that are unfulfillable and that prevents and forestalls Israeli air action against, for example, ballistic missile development. Then not only will that be a historic foreign policy failure by the administration, but will also be a green light to China to take Taiwan. So one of the things President Trump frequently said is that the, the pullout, the disastrous pullout from Afghanistan in the style that Joe Biden did, it led directly to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I think that is obviously true. The timeline matches up. It is clear that Vladimir Putin thought Joe Biden was weak and so he made a move on Ukraine. Can you imagine what China and Russia will do if they see that the United States, the most powerful military force on planet earth, makes overt threats to Iran, tried to eradicate its nuclear program back in June of last year and then backs off after this gigantic military buildup and the Iranians get off the hook here. What will that say to Russia? What will that say to China? Because China, Russia, Iran, they're all in bed with each other. What exactly will that mean for geopolitics in the future? Because let's be clear, while Iran has a ballistic missile arsenal that's capable of hitting U. S. Bases in the region, the suggestion that tens of thousands of Americans will die or thousands of Americans will die in Iranian counter strikes is false. It is not true. Iran does not have that sort of overwhelming capacity. The United States is already hardening its own defenses against the possibility of counter strike. Presumably any strike delivered by the United States would be in the first run delivered directly at the ballistic missile program to take out as many bases as humanly possible. Iranian air defenses remain non existent at this point. You could essentially fly a biplane over Iran and Drop TNT from your hands onto IRGC bases. At this point, the skies are naked above Iran. And so in the face of that Iranian weakness and the threats that the President has already levied against the Iranians, if this massive mobilization of materiel, which is costing, I assume, tens of billions of dollars, it costs a lot of money to do what's being done right now. If that ends up being basically just a bluff and the Iranians end up negotiating their way out of this with the future for their nuclear program and a continuation of ballistic missiles and a continuation of terrorism and a continuation of the murder of protesters, if they're able to do that. The chances that China makes a strong move to blockade Taiwan inside the next two years are extremely high. Because would China believe that a country that is unwilling to fulfill the President's red line promises on Iran, which is eminently weaker than China, is willing to stand up to China over a country that is all the way around the globe in Taiwan and just a little ways from the coast of China? That's going to be the logic in Beijing. The logic in Russia, by the way, is going to be that the United States, if pressed hard enough, will simply back out of Ukraine and the Europeans don't have the capacity to ramp up fast enough. I think you are looking at, at this point a serious conflagration on multiple fronts if the United States does not either achieve some sort of signal deal by which Iran surrenders pretty much all of its forward capacity nuclear program and starts to open up to the protesters, or you're going to end up with something that is, that is really dangerous, a very dangerous geopolitical situation. And again, the signals that are being sent by the administration are pretty mixed because the reality is you have a mixed administration when it comes to its approach to things like China. So, for example, according to the Wall Street Journal, a major US Arms sale package for Taiwan is in limbo following pressure from Chinese leader Xi Jinping and concerns among some in the Trump administration that green lighting the weapons deal would derail President Trump's coming visit to Beijing. In a phone call earlier this month with Trump, Xi urged caution on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Trump wants to avoid antagonizing China ahead of his visit. So let's get real. If in February, March, the United States backs off arms sales to Taiwan and caves to the Iranian regime, why in the world would China not make a move on Taiwan? What would be the compelling case? Seriously, it's. You know, geopolitics is a zero sum game in terms of power when you create a power vacuum, somebody bad tends to fill the gap. That is the history of the United States in foreign policy. The same, by the way, I think, will hold true in Russia Ukraine. I think Russia is likely to significantly ramp up operations in Ukraine. If nothing is done in Iran, number one, it'll free up Iranian resources to ship more Shahid drones over to the Russians use in Ukraine. But second of all, and the administration keeps claiming meaningful progress in these Russia Ukraine negotiations, I would love to see some evidence for this proposition. Here's Caroline Levitt yesterday at the White House.

Mary Margaret Olahan (47:45)

I think the President would respond to that by saying he does not think it's fair that thousands of Ukrainians are losing their lives, and Russians too, in this deadly war. And that's why the President and his team have committed a tremendous amount of time and energy in bringing this war that is very far away from the United States of America. But nevertheless, this is a President of peace. And so he's committed a tremendous amount of time and energy to bringing this war to an end. Just yesterday, there was another round of trilateral talks between the U.S. russia and Ukraine. There was meaningful progress made in both parties. Both sides agreed to update their respective leaders and to continue to work towards a peace deal together. So there will be another round applause of talks in the future. But I think the President views this entire situation as very unfair, not just for Russians and Ukrainians who have lost their lives, but also for the American people and the American taxpayer who were footing the bill for this war effort before President Trump put a stop to it.

Ben Shapiro (48:42)

So, again, we will have to see if any evidence emerges at all that the Russians have shown flexibility with regard to these negotiations. We've been going for months, over a year on these negotiations. The Russians so far have shown zero flexibility. They are waiting, they're biding their time. They're waiting for a moment of weakness, clearly. So high stakes happening in the Middle east right now. Joining us online is Mary Margaret Olahan. She, of course, is our White House correspondent, and she's been all over everything happening at the White House. There's a lot going on. Mary Margaret, thanks for the time.

Mary Margaret Olahan (49:13)

Hey, Ben, it's great to be here.

Ben Shapiro (49:17)

So you were in the White House press room, as you often are yesterday, when, when Caroline Levitt was asked about President Trump and racism, I have to say it was, it was a little bit funny to watch, considering that he was simultaneously holding an event paying tribute to black Americans in which black Americans were praising him and hugging him. But what was the room in the. What was the. What was the press room like?

Mary Margaret Olahan (49:37)

Well, Ben, first of all, I was sitting in our seat because we now have a seat in the White House briefing room, which I'm very excited about. So I'm sitting there, and I hear this reporter at the front of the room from CBS ask Caroline why people would suggest that the president has been called racist by Democrats. And Caroline just looked him in the eye and goes, you're joking, right? And a number of reporters in the room started laughing, and I don't think they were all conservative. It was a humorous moment because we all know, and we've all heard the President be called racist by, in fact, some of the reporters who were in the room yesterday. And so she came back at him. And our social team, I saw, did a fantastic job compiling a list of these Democrats who have called the President racist. I mean, Ben, you and I have heard the President called racist ever since he came down that escalator to run for president in the first place. It's just one of the most common insults that he's received. But, of course, in this instance, the legacy media would far prefer to suggest that that never happened and to gaslight us about that. And then I head into this Black History Month event with the president where I couldn't even see him because the attendees were so excited to see the president, to take photos of him, to applaud their friends and their family who were talking to him. Some of the speakers were very emotional and went up and praised the president, thanked God for putting him in the White House. So just a very emotional and excited ceremony. And, of course, it was pretty ironic to be in such a great place and to see all these people applauding the President. Only a couple hours after a reporter in the front row of the White House press briefing room goes, who's called the President racist?

Ben Shapiro (51:19)

So, meanwhile, obviously, the. The operations in Minneapolis from ICE have been drawn down. That began earlier last week. It seems as though the controversy around ICE is not going away because Democrats continue to claim that that basic enforcement of law is somehow a violation of moral precepts. What is. What is the feeling around the White House with regard to ICE and immigration policy right now, given the sort of chaos of the last?

Mary Margaret Olahan (51:43)

I think the feeling around the White House is mostly that Tom Homan has brought a sense of more calm, of more peace to Minneapolis. People are happy with the job that he's doing. He himself has. You know, when you see him in his press conferences, which he's done about once a week, since he got there, he's very calm, he's very serious. He talks about the importance of working with local officials and also getting the job done, de escalating. And then meanwhile, on the DHS front, our colleague Jenny Terr has done some really good reporting showing kind of the drama that's been going down over there. You have reports in a lot of legacy outlets about concerns about Kristi Noem and her relationship with Corey Lewand, all the different things that are going on in this side, this department. You have Trisha McLaughlin, who we've worked with many times, leaving DHS, going on to another role. They're filling her role with two other women who will be taking on the role of the DHS spokesman and assistant secretary. We're excited to work with them, hear what they have to say. And Tricia has not said where she's going next. There's been rumors floated that she could possibly fill in for Caroline when Caroline goes on maternity leave, since Caroline will be having a baby this early, early summer, late spring. So lots of different movement, shifting parts. There's a lot of speculation about where Kristi Noem stands with Trump. The president met with her and with Corey Lewandowski as all this drama was going on with Homan going to Minneapolis. So we don't know her fate yet. She seems to be fine right now, but you never really know how these things play out. The legacy media wants that scalp. They want her gone, but they also want a lot of other Trump officials to leave the administration. And the president hasn't really anyone yet in Trump 2.0, so we'll have to see how that plays out. But absolutely keeping an eye on Minneapolis and happy that the, the, the unrest seems to have died down a bit.

Ben Shapiro (53:34)

Meanwhile, obviously a lot of eyes on Iran, on the Middle east right now. The United States has deployed extraordinary resources to the Middle east as negotiations continue to go on between Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff and Abbas Araki, the Foreign Minister of Iran, sort of through channels. What are you hearing around the White House about the, the mood with regard to those negotiations and where we stand with Iran right now?

Mary Margaret Olahan (53:55)

So the White House is so incredibly cautious about what they share with the media about this move. And, you know, they are a very transparent administration. We're lucky for that. But when it comes to this sort of thing, they will not only not share, but they will kind of mock you for asking and assuming that the president would share this type of huge, big deal situation with a mayor reporter. You know, I'm not so Lucky as to have a thing that got me slapped on national television. But I did kind of venture a guest to her one time to Caroline, and she said, as she said to many other reporters, basically, why would we tell you that? And, you know, it's a. It's a good question. This is a huge matter of national security, of. Of significance to the whole world. So they're being very cautious. That being said, I believe we do. We've deployed more. More ships to Iran than we have ever seen since 2003. That is a massive fighting force that is established near. A lot of speculation about which way the President will go on this. You know, some. Some White House officials had talked about how when we saw in, for example, with Maduro, this was a very quick endeavor on. They went in and out. They completed the mission in less than two hours with the B2 strikes on Iran that we detailed in our documentary last year, this was also a very quick mission, took place very quickly. So the president, you know, he may be considering a quick mission like this. He may also be considering something more serious, and we're hoping to get more information from him on that. I know he's assembling his Board of Peace today, and he'll be having a meeting with them to discuss a lot of things going on, and this obviously will play into their discussions, given the massive implications for the region. So looking forward to hearing about that as well.

Ben Shapiro (55:45)

Mary Margaret, I also know that you are headed over to the Smithsonian with the First Lady. Why don't you tell us about that?

Mary Margaret Olahan (55:50)

Yes. I'm so excited, Ben. You know, maybe I could call it a fun, girly endeavor that I get to go on tomorrow where the first lady will be donating her inaugural gown to the Smithsonian. So this is actually the second gown that she's donated to the Smithsonian, and they don't accept all gowns from all first ladies, so it's an honor for her. And it's particularly interesting because since she released her documentary earlier this year, there's a whole bit in the documentary about how she designed this dress and the designer and who she was working with, and she tries it on and they make alterations. And it's a very interesting little peek into the First Lady's her interactions with her designers and how much input she has on the dress that she wears and why she wants this color and that color. And, you know, we might think some of it is trivial, but at the end of the day, it does lend itself to her image, to the aura, you might say, of the first lady. Of the United States. And so she'll, I believe, be delivering remarks there and excited to hear what she has to say.

Ben Shapiro (56:52)

It's Mary Margaret Olihan, our White House correspondent. Mary Margaret, great to talk to you.

Mary Margaret Olahan (56:57)

Thanks so much, Ben.

Ben Shapiro (56:59)

Alrighty. Coming up, we'll get into the Republicans midterm chance. Apparently a big behind closed doors meeting got held and Republicans are figuring out their strategy. First, you have to be a member. So if you're not, become a member right now. Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us. Okay. No, not even close. Whatever. You know what? 2, 3, 4.

Mary Margaret Olahan (57:43)

I cannot believe we're back here again.

Ben Shapiro (57:44)

Ben. If the Ben Shapiro shows Mom. And Ben After Dark is a cool mom.

Mary Margaret Olahan (57:51)

J.

Ben Shapiro (57:53)

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