J.D. Vance (5:38)

if you think back to Afghanistan, 20 years of mission creep, 20 years of not having a clear objective, and 20 years of the United States trying to bring a liberal democracy to Afghanistan. Iraq was a little bit shorter, but we were still in that country for nearly a decade with no clear mission, no clear definition. What's so different about this, Jesse, is that the President has clearly defined what he wants to accomplish and there's just no way. I said this before the conflict started. I'll repeat it again. There's just no way that Donald Trump is going to allow this country to get into a multi year conflict with no clear end in sight and no clear objective. What is different about President Trump, and it's frankly different about both Republicans and Democrats of the past, is that he's not going to let his country go to war unless there's a clearly defined objective. He's defined that objective as Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and has to commit long term to never trying to rebuild their nuclear capability. It's pretty clear, it's pretty simple. And I think that means that we're not going to get into the problems that we've had with Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ben Shapiro (6:39)

And we are just at the beginning. Remember, we are in about day three and a half of this war. More is coming. Far more. Far more. Victory is coming. We'll get to that in just one second. First, remember, if you're not a Daily Wire plus member, you should do that right now. We're bringing live coverage around the clock on everything that is happening. Head on over to DailyWire.com your subscriptions allow us to continue to do business and to bring you the material that you want. Okay, so here is the deal. Marco Rubio, he was warning there are harder hits coming. Again, those harder hits are already coming as of this morning. The Israeli air force on Tuesday struck the building housing Iran's Council of Experts in the holy city of Qom, disrupting the process of picking a new supreme leader. So they killed the old supreme leader and now they're killing the people selecting the new supreme leader. The destabilization inside the Iranian government is severe and much, much more is coming. Here's the secretary of State yesterday again,

Marco Rubio (7:32)

I'm not going to give away the details of our tactical efforts, but the hardest hits are yet to come from the US Military. The next phase will be even more punishing on Iran than it is right now. Someone was screaming. How long will it take? I don't know how long it will take. We have objectives. We will do this as long as it takes to achieve those objectives. And we will achieve those objectives. The world will be a safer place when we're done with this operation.

Ben Shapiro (7:55)

And again, the vice president, J.D. vance, who had told the President, according to the New York Times, either go big or go home. No pinprick strikes. Either do it or don't do it. He says that America's objectives are clear. Our capabilities are massive. Here was the vice president last night on Fox News.

J.D. Vance (8:09)

But there's also been a lot of conversation about what are our capabilities. And look, I know this stuff. Obviously I'm not going to reveal classified information here on air. But the president of the United States knows what we're able to do. He knows that we have much greater capacity to inflict damage on the Iranian nuclear program, but also on, on various missiles that threaten our troops. As you've seen, they've been launching those at our troops for much of the past three days. So I think the president has made it very clear that the United States has a lot of optionality here. And you know, we could go for a little bit longer. We could go for a lot longer. But I think the President just wants to make it clear to the Iranians and to the world that he is not going to rest until he accomplishes that all important objective of ensuring that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon, not just for the next few years, but not just because we obliterated for DO or some other enrichment facility, but because the Iranians themselves commit long term to not building a nuclear weapon.

Ben Shapiro (9:06)

So here's the question. What exactly is Iran going to do about all this? They are getting absolutely destroyed. The Iranian government is being absolutely destroyed. Like right now. The Israeli Air force has flown something like 1200 sorties over Iran in three days with zero combat losses. The United States has flown far more than that with zero losses in theater. Right. So they've, we had losses because there was a missile that fell in Kuwait. That's where all the casualties came from. The United States has lost no material over Iran. So what are the Iranian, what, what will the Iranian government do? What will the Ayatollahs do? Well, they have one play and one play, only one play. And that is they are counting on the cuck coalition. They are counting on the lying left in the United States and the horseshoe right to undermine the United States and, and Israel right here. That is the entire game. That's the entire game. Tried to withdraw domestic support for the operation. Now again, that's nothing new. That's not just a thing that's happening right now and it's unique. And this is some sort of crazy claim. Our military enemies always invariably count on their useful allies and useful idiots to push their agenda. The Germans in the lead up to World War II counted on the American boond and they celebrated. As the Lindbergh right gained credibility in the United States, they deployed Lord Haw Haw against the Brits. The Japanese activated Tokyo Rose to undermine American combat morale during World War II. The Viet Cong who lost on the battlefield counted on the American legacy media to convince Americans to abandon our victories in Vietnam. The kgb, the nkvd, before that. They routinely utilized idiots in the United States to spread their propaganda going all the way back to the New York Times in the early part of the 1930s with Walter Durante. Even Baghdad Bob tried to tell the American public everything was fine in Iraq while Saddam Hussein was falling. Bizarre confluence of the lying left Democrats who protest that we're not winning, that we can't possibly win, there's no way we can win. And the horseshoe right, conspiracy theorists, morons, isolationists, anti American devotees of Bernie Sanders's foreign policy. That's the stuff the Ayatollahs are counting on. It's what the remainder of the Iranian government is counting on. And you can tell because they are clearly, clearly messaging directly to them. So Abbas Araki, who is the foreign Minister in Iran is directing tweets in English directly at these people. That is his goal. He is counting on again the lying left and the horseshoe right to save him. That is the entire strategy at this point. They got no military strategy. They have nothing. Nothing. They are firing the odd drone at Qatar and Cyprus in the vain hopes that countries are going to talk President Trump into ending the operation before the defenestration of the Iranian government. So Araki put out a tweet, quote, Mr. Rubio admitted what we all knew us has entered a war of choice on behalf of Israel. There was never any so called Iranian threat. Shedding of both American and Iranian blood is thus on Israel. Firsters, American people deserve better and should take back their country. So we'll get to what Rubio said yesterday because it's being taken out of context and what he is saying is a lie. But basically Iraqi is making three arguments. This is the argument of the mullahs. First, Iran was never a threat. Everything was fine. They could have been our allies. In fact, they could have been our best friends. Second, Iran was negotiating and the United States out of peak and because it was manipulated by the evil Yudin, cut it short. And third, and finally only the Jews and particularly the Israelis cucked America into doing this. So let's go through each one of those claims one by one because it turns out all three are horseshit. First, the claim that Iran was not a threat, that is a lie. It is a lie. Not only was Iran building up its ballistic missile facilities, not only did it have a wide variety of short range missiles, not only was it developing nuclear weapons, it was doing all of those things and spreading terrorism throughout the region. The urgency was because Iran was building underground facilities designed to withstand bombing. The window of opportunity, in other words, was closing. Again, this is the Vice President. The Vice President is not an interventionist. The Vice President is one of the biggest non interventionist, one of the biggest isolationist leaning voices in the administration. Here he was on Fox News last night pointing out that what Iran was doing did not pass the smell test.

J.D. Vance (13:11)

But the Iranians would come back to us, Jesse, and they'd say, well, you know, having enrichment for civilian purposes, for energy purposes is a matter of national pride. And so we would say, okay, that's interesting, but why are you building your enrichment facilities 70ft underground? And why are you enriching to a level that's way beyond civilian enrichment and is only useful if your goal is to build a nuclear bomb? Nobody objects to the Iranians being able to build, you know, medical isotopes. The objection is these enrichment facilities that are only useful for building a nuclear weapon. Even some international organizations that usually don't agree with the United States were very clear that Iran's only purpose in building these underground, highly enriched facilities was, was to build a nuclear weapon. It just. It just doesn't pass the smell test for you to say that you want enrichment for, like, medical isotopes while at the same time trying to build a facility 70, 80ft underground.

Ben Shapiro (14:09)

And we'll discuss in a moment what the United States was offering, because basically the US Was saying, you want medical isotopes, you can make that happen for you. Just give up the nukes. And they were saying no. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Rubio was pointing out quite correctly that the ayatollahs are radical clerics. That this idea that they are making smart, strategic. If they had made a smart strategic decision, they would have given up their nuclear program years ago and been reintegrated into the world economy, which wants their oil and natural gas. They do any of that stuff.

Marco Rubio (14:35)

The Ayatollah is a radical, Was a radical cleric. That entire regime is led by radical clerics who don't make geopolitical decisions. They make decisions on the basis of theology. Their view of theology, which is an apocalyptic one that has to be taken very seriously as well. So that was the purpose for what this operation is all about. That's what it's focused on. As the President said earlier today, it is on or ahead of schedule. I will defer to the Department of War to discuss the progress being made at a tactical level. But it was the right decision and an important decision for the safety and security of the world.

Ben Shapiro (15:10)

And here was Steve Witkoff, the guy who was trying to negotiate with Iran. They have 10,000 roughly kilograms of fissionable material that's broken up into roughly 460 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium, another thousand kilograms of 20% enriched uranium, and the balance is at 3.67. They manufacture their own centrifuges to enrich this material. So there's almost no stopping them. They have an endless supply of it. The 60% materials, Sean, can be brought to 90%. That's weapon grade, weapons grade in roughly one week, maybe 10 days. At the outside, the 20% can be brought to weapons grade inside of three to four weeks. And let me say this because I forgot this small little detail 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 stance. And by the way, again, that is leaving aside the ballistic missile development, the short range missile development, it's leaving aside the support for terrorist groups and all the rest. This idea that Iran was not a threat and was not becoming a deeper threat by hardening its sources. That's idiocy. It's idiocy. Then there's the lie that Iran was negotiating in good faith, right? This is put forward by some members of the international community, the un, the French, all the rest of the world wimps. Steve Witkoff was the man in the room here. He was explaining his original offer, which is a pretty good offer for the Iranians if they didn't want to go nuclear. You got to a point where you were discussing enriched uranium at much at very low levels for civilian purposes, although I don't think they really need it because they have all the energy they'd ever want.

J.D. Vance (17:16)

But did that come up?

Ben Shapiro (17:18)

Was that offer made to them? We discussed with them 10 years of no enrichment whatsoever and we would pay for the fuel. And it was flatly rejected. And the President said, we're in there to have a good faith negotiation. Pardon me, you're saying that we would give it to them. And they rejected that. They actually had that and they rejected that. Which told us at that very moment that they had no, no notion of doing anything other than retaining enrichment for the purpose of weaponizing. And, and then there is Iran's third claim, which is that the Jews did it, that it was the Jews who manipulated President Trump into war, which is a hell of a take. But I'll tell you what is not a hell of a take. The obvious nature of using Shopify. I know, look at that ad transition. Listen, we started a business. It is challenging, it is difficult. But I'm glad that we did, and I hope you're glad that we did as well. You can launch a business too, with our sponsor, Shopify. Shopify is the e commerce platform powering millions of businesses around the world. And 10% of all E commerce in the United States, including our very own daily wire shop. With hundreds of ready to use templates, you can build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style. Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines and even enhance your product photography so you can accelerate your efficiency. Maybe you already know you have a good product, but you need help getting that word out. Shopify helps you find your customers with easy to run email and social media campaigns, making it feel like you have a marketing team behind you can tackle all those important tasks in one place, from inventory to payments to analytics without juggling multiple websites or platforms. And if you ever get stuck, Shopify's award winning 24. 7 customer support is always around to help. Plus that iconic purple Shop pay button isn't just recognizable, it's the best converting checkout on the planet. That means more sales for you. We use Shopify for pretty much all of our CPG because again, we've got a team. But we need the ease of launching. It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. So sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com Shapiro go to shopify.com Shapiro that's shopify.com Shapiro Spring is a natural reset point. If you've been putting off cleaning up the messier parts of your business, now would be the time to make the change. Streamlining your communications is one of the quickest and easiest upgrades you can make. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo. It's spelled Q U O. The smarter way to run your business communications. Now here's the reality. If your business is still bouncing between personal cell phones, clunky desk phones, random text threads, you're bleeding efficiency and you're looking less professional than you should. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2. It's the difference between running your business like it's 2004 and actually acting like you live in a modern economy where customers expect instant, organized responses. Your entire team can handle calls and texts from one shared number. Everyone sees the full thread. Quo's AI automatically logs calls, generates summaries, and highlights next steps so nothing gets lost. So if you're serious about not looking like an amateur operation, this is the moment to do something about it. Make this season where no opportunity and a customer slips away. Try Quo for free. Plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com/Ben that's Q U O.com/Ben Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers. So then there's the third claim. The third claim is the one that of course is directed at the podcast bros and and gals, the class of grifters we'll get to in a moment who are eager to lap up Iranian propaganda for the clicks and for the money and because of course, it is worthwhile for them to take a position against the administration, not out of some sort of honest disagreement, but because they actually are perfectly willing to watch Iran go nuclear. So the argument that is trained on this group is it was the Jews, right? That is the argument that Iran is trying now. So they are trying. The the Jews cucked America. It was really that that various Jewish sources were calling up. President Trump isn't responsible for any of his own decisions. That really it was in the end just the Jews. It was the Israelis. Somehow Bibi Netanyahu worked his secret magic and that's what President Trump did here. The reason that this gained a little steam yesterday was because Marco Rubio was talking about why now? Like why did the United States decide to do this right now? And here's what Secretary of State Rubio had to say.

Marco Rubio (21:26)

Why now? Well, there's two reasons why now. The first is it was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the United States or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond and respond against the United States. The orders had been delegated down to the field commanders. It was automatic. And in fact it bear to be true because in fact, within an hour of the initial attack on the leadership compound, the missile forces in the south and in the north for that matter, had already been activated to launch. In fact, those had already been pre positioned. The third is the assessment that was made that if we stood and waited for that attack to come first before we hit them, we would suffer much higher casualties. And so the President made the very wise decision. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties and perhaps even higher those killed.

Ben Shapiro (22:25)

Okay, so those last two sentences are being taken out of context by people who apparently didn't watch the rest of the press conference and or are being totally dishonest with you to suggest that actually what happened here is that Israel entered into a war of choice or was going to, and that they were going to drag the United States into war because Iran would retaliate against US Bases and therefore they basically stronged arm the the Israeli government strong armed President Trump into joining. Well, fortunately for us, we have tape of the Secretary of State expressly rejecting this idiotic suggestion in the same press conference that of course got many, many fewer clicks on the X machine, which is an algorithmic disaster. Here is Secretary of State Rubio being asked whether in fact Israel strong armed the United States into this. And here he was saying, no, that's stupid. Was forced to strike because of an impending Israeli action. No.

Marco Rubio (23:14)

First of all, 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 weakened 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.

Ben Shapiro (23:47)

I mean, in other words, one year from now, nobody could do anything. The window was closing for action. Israel would have had to act because they had no choice. So I'm not even sure I understand the counter suggestion. Israel was supposed to wait for some reason. What was Israel supposed to do? Wait until they became a powerhouse again with the capacity to shoot down planes and to harden its facilities against an attack? And the United States should have waited also. Again, the deliberate attempt to take the last two sentences of the first clip out of context to suggest that basically America was strong armed into this is such abject horseshit. Marco Rubio is dismissing it. The President of the United States is not going to be strong armed by anybody. Have you ever met Donald Trump? Have you ever spent time watching Donald Trump? He's been the President, effectively speaking, for kind of three terms, right? He wasn't president during the Biden years, but we were watching him pretty closely. He was kind of a major figure. This notion that we hit Iran because of vibes or because Mark Levin or Miriam Adelson or I asked the President really, really, really nicely to hit Iran is such nonsense. It's just nonsense. By the way, I should just mention I have never asked the President for anything. He is the President of the United States. He's the one making the call. And the reality is this, you don't hit a regime like Iran's after they develop all their capacities. That's, that's stupidity. Why would you wait for a year until they harden everything, including their Nuclear facilities to do anything. We did this crap with North Korea, you'll recall North Korea. We kept dealing with them and dealing with them and dealing with them. Then boom, they explode a nuclear weapon. And now they're basically ensconced there forever. That is not when you fail to act. You act when you have the opportunity. Of course, now the Iranians, as I say, are counting on a bunch of people who are to pick up their narrative nonsense and start promoting it. So on the lying left, you have, for example, Senator Tim Kaine. Now, I know y' all forgot about Tim Kaine. He was the guy who ran with Hillary Clinton for vice president and now you don't remember his name because irrelevant. Well, he writes in the Wall Street Journal, quote, the American people don't want to be dragged into another forever war under false pretenses. The US And Iran have both constructed narratives whereby the other is the aggressor in this long standing conflict. More, more. War isn't the answer. So, first of all, the unbelievable moral equivalence between a terrorist regime that is responsible for the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of Americans and that has spread terrorism all over the world and the United States is laughably terrible, like morally, morally imbecilic. And then Cain goes on to tell lies about how great the Obama deal was, you know, the one that was great for the mullahs where he shipped them pallets of cash in exchange for pretty much nothing and a clear pathway to a bomb. And finally, Tim Kaine concludes the best solution is to let the ayatollahs spread terror, build ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons, and shoot protesters in the streets. He says, quote, our troops deserve better than to be sent into a war by a president who promised to end wars. Iranian citizens deserve better than their mistreatment by their own regime and the death of civilians, including schoolchildren, at the hands of US And Israeli aerial bombardment. Excuse me. So he's saying that the Iranians deserve better. What, to live under the heavy hand of the Iranian government? So, yes, he cares so much about the Iranians that they should be shot by the tens of thousands in the streets. That's. That's his case. Tim Kaine, what a dolt. What a true dole. Thank God that guy was never vice president of the United States. And as for the notion that President Trump never spelled out the goals, here's President Trump spelling out the goals.

Donald Trump (27:09)

Our objectives are clear. First, we're destroying Iran's missile capabilities. And you see that happening on an hourly basis. And their capacity to produce brand New ones and pretty good ones they make. Second, we're annihilating their navy. We've knocked out already 10 ships. They're at the bottom of the sea. Third, we're ensuring that the world's number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon. Never going to have a nuclear weapon. I said that from the beginning. They're never going to have a nuclear weapon. They were on the road to getting one legitimately through a deal that was signed foolishly by our country. And finally, we're ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders. And we thought we had a deal, but then they backed out and they came back and we thought we had a deal and they backed out. I said, you can't deal with these people. You got to do it the right way.

Ben Shapiro (28:15)

But don't worry, the Iranians will always have a little help from their friends, like the terrorist supporter Zaran Mamdani. And I say that advisedly, considering he literally cut a rap in favor of people who are convicted for terror support. Here is Zoran Mamdani reacting, the mayor of New York. I'm old enough to remember when there was a smoking hole in the ground in New York and 3,000 dead New Yorkers thanks to terrorism. Zormadani is old enough to remember when he, you know, was associating with people who support that kind of thing. Here is Zoramdani. Today's military strikes by the United States and Israel mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal act of war, of aggression. Bombing cities, killing civilians, opening up a new theater of war. Americans do not want this. Americans do not want another war in pursuit of regime change. We want an answer to the affordability crisis. We want peace. Now, I may be a young mayor, but I am old enough to remember the devastating consequences of our country's pursuit of regime change in this same region not that many years ago. And I'm old enough to remember when again, there was a gigantic smoking hole in the ground thanks to the predations of Islamic terrorism. And I'm old enough to remember because I'm, you know, not all that old. I don't think you have to be that old to remember. Iran spreading terrorism all over the region and Zoram Dani acting as though history began last night or three nights ago. That Iran was not doing anything is asinine. We reviewed the timeline over and over on the show over the course of the last several days. Nearly half a century of Iranian war on America, ranging from the Hezbollah bombing of the Marine Barracks in 1983 in Lebanon to the Iranian support for the murder of hundreds of American troops in Iraq. But this is your left. This is the left that the Iranians are counting on. They can always count on the editorial page over at the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof, who has never been right about anything, doing the same sort of shtick. You know, I feel for the Iranians because they. I mean, they've just suffered these brutal massacres, but it's not at all obvious to me that a war with Iran is going to improve things for those Iranians. I think that if the US had focused more on getting Starlink terminals in inside Iran, on using the intelligence community to broadcast the corruption, the hypocrisy of the regime, you know, I think that would have been helpful. Now, would it have achieved the results? I don't know, but I think it might have been more likely than, you know, then this campaign of bombing, and certainly would have been much less risky. I can't take the level of stupidity here. I cannot. It is almost impossible to take this level of stupidity. So you had literally millions of Iranians in the streets just weeks ago, and they were getting shot by the tens of thousands. And his answer is, you know, maybe if they knew more about how corrupt the regime is via Starlink. You schmuck. You ridiculous figure. Nicholas Kristoff. Yes, clearly what the Iranians were lacking was information about how corrupt and unworkable their regime is. Clearly, the Iranians who, Who can't pay for water at this point, clearly they need more. What they needed was an informational war. You see these, these clowns. And then, of course, there's Gavin Newsom taking every side of every. Every possible issue. Again, more positions than the Kama Sutra. The governor of California, he is spreading the libel that American and Israeli forces were targeting schoolchildren, which, again, this is gross stuff coming from Gavin Newsom, truly gross.

Ben Domenech (31:40)

We have to reconcile why our bombs

Ben Shapiro (31:42)

were used, or Israeli bombs were used to kill children, young girls at a school, and what the imminent threat was. It hasn't been described, okay? The imminent threat has, in fact been described. And the overall threat has been described for literally decades. And this notion that we have to justify bad things happening in war by accident, that you have just forbade all military conflict forever. Forever. Because it turns out bad things happen in war. And by the way, we still don't know all the facts about this school. What happened, where it was located? Apparently it was located next to an old IRGC facility. It could have been mistaken intelligence. The understanding is that it was an American plane, maybe, or it might have been a failed ballistic missile from the Iranians. We actually don't know at this point. But even if it was just an accident from the allied forces, the slander against American soldiers that we are purposefully targeting schoolchildren is disgusting. Truly disgusting. Well, fortunately, there's one Democrat who says the right things that. Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. He joins us on the line right now. Senator Fetterman, thanks so much for the time. Really appreciate it.

John Fetterman (32:45)

Well, it's great to be. Yeah, it's. I'm glad we finally connected.

Ben Shapiro (32:50)

Yeah. So, Senator Fetterman, let's talk about the President's action in Iran. You have been forthright. You've been a clarion call inside your own party, saying that Iran should never be allowed to achieve a nuclear weapon. They're developing ballistic missiles. They're spreading terrorism. All of that was true. So you've said. Well, then, the actions. Action. The President's actions here are appropriate. What do you make of the President's actions? Why are so many people in your party critical of what the President is doing when it seems like that was the only road to actually achieve the goal of disarming the Iranian government?

John Fetterman (33:21)

The only thing I can figure out is, is that. That it. It was. It came from Trump. Honestly, I mean, I just refuse to just accept the fact that one of the most evil leaders, you know, and recorded recent history, I mean, he's dead. I mean, another 48 other ones were killed in that. Just that one day. Why can't we just say that's great? For a lot of different reasons, you know, and it's like, I'm so tired of. Of people hiding behind the line of like, well, we can never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb or these kinds of specific kinds of missiles. Well, then, what about. Is it just more. More tweet about it, you know, more harsh language, you know? Or are you really just to say, hey, something's been done and it actually achieved those things? Why can't you say, yes, that's the right thing? You know, for. For Israel. It's the right thing for the region, the world order. And also it's. For me, that's American first in the sense that, you know, it's a. It's a fight for civilization.

Ben Domenech (34:29)

And.

John Fetterman (34:30)

And now it's like the way we're going to stand with Israel, and that's our values. And for me, that's democracy. I really, truly don't understand why they can't just acknowledge that the world is more safe after those actions taken.

Ben Shapiro (34:47)

Senator Fetterman, you've been incredibly consistent with regard to support for America, for Israel and its fight against Islamic terrorism over the course of the last several years. Obviously, for some reason this has become a divisive issue. There are some on the right who are dividing. There are a lot on the left who have been taking the opposite position. What do you think the trend line is inside the Democratic Party with regard to Israel and with, with regard to Middle Eastern policy from, from the United States? Are you confident that the Democratic Party will move in a better direction in the near future when it comes to defending America's interests in the Middle east with the muscularity necessary to actually achieve victory?

John Fetterman (35:22)

No, no, unfortunately, actually, it's just going to be. It's worse. I mean, I just read an article in Politico that described the situation in the Illinois Democrat primary. And now they're even drilling down on obscure things that someone visited Israel like six or seven years ago. You have to explain that. I've already assumed that it's going to get more and more divisive and it's going to become more of like a purity test or this kind of like this weird thing for me. It often becomes a lot of anti Semitism at its root. Otherwise, where if you have to be in, in, in a primary, asked to defend, just visiting, visiting Israel back in like I think it was 2019. Why, why is that even an issue? Why is it a problem? But, but now if you've done that, then you must mean you support genocide and describe Israel as a genocide thing. That's really becoming the essence of a lot of these primaries, whether it's in Maine or whether it's here in Illinois and across the Democratic Party. I sadly, I assume that's going to continue to move more and more towards that. And they have mainstreamed this idea that Israel engaged in genocide. And now people, you know, that are part of that part of the party are now announcing in Germany, in Germany, that Israel is talk about genocide sitting in Germany for that. So I think that's going to continue to intensify.

Ben Shapiro (37:06)

You know, Senator Ferman, given that sort of backdrop, looking forward to 2028, obviously you're a Democrat. Presumably you'd like to see a Democrat take the White House. When you look at the Democratic field you mentioned by, by proxy there, Alexander Ocasio Cortez, who may run for president, she of course, is the person who is in Germany. The suggesting that Israel had, had committed a genocide. Do you see the, the possibility of a moderate Democrat taking the nomination in 2028, given the fact that there is this sort of animus that has arisen on the part of many in the base for, for Israel and for American interests in the region?

John Fetterman (37:38)

I really don't have any thoughts on, on 2028. And that's it. I mean, that's a long way out and things always going to change and you just never know. I mean, the, the last, the last past presidents came from nowhere or assume that's not going to be the case. So, so for me, I don't really have any thoughts, but I will can't assume that it's going to get more and more anti Israel in the Democratic Party and really the spirit of where the party sets in the primaries, like in the Senate and a lot of the House races now, and if you check any of them, it becomes more and more a purity test and it's described as, you know, you genocide or some kinds of other absurd things. So, you know, that's where we're at. I mean, that's a fact. Find a primary. It's really hard, I can't think to find anyone that's proudly to stand with, with it with Israel. I had, I had APAC visit my office just last, last week and, and now I'm like, hey, you know, here, here's the picture here. I'm at, you know, I'm like, I just put that out. If somebody wants to judge me because I'm going to, I'm going to support Israel through all of these things, it's like, okay, but that's where I'm at. And just watch how other people in my party are back away or the insects. Some try to have it both ways. Well, we can't ever have them acquire a nuclear bomb. I really won't back any doing anything about it. But, but that's really the empty kind of rhetoric.

Ben Shapiro (39:10)

Senator Fetterman, you've been briefed obviously by members of the Trump administration on the Hill about the ongoing action in Iran. How do you think it's going so far? What's your sort of takeaway from the efficacy of the US Israeli operation?

John Fetterman (39:23)

I think it's been outstanding. When you can wipe out almost 50, 50 of the leadership in just really one hit. That's, that's tremendous. And, and really what's, what's happening at this point? It's just a bunch of cheap drones. Just, they're, they're flailing and just firing it around. You know, they Threatened to sink our, our, our ships. Now, like we've just, you know, annihilated. I wouldn't even describe what Iran has as a navy, but, you know, most of them are at the bottom of, of the Persian Gulf right now, too, as they should. So it's. What. When is Iran going to shoot their shot? Because it seems like they never really had a shot to shoot at this point. It's just flailing. And I can't understand what they think the upside is to attack a lot of the other Arab nations in the region. It's just going to continue to isolate Iran. And I could even see that could be a silver lining that, that could make the Abraham accordance more, more likely, or just realizing that what a cancer that Iran is. And now I think everyone. I mean, look at the kind of garbage that's grieving that he's done. You know, like, he's gone. I mean, like, who's grieving. Who's grieving for this person? And a lot of them are the same people, you know, that were in this protesting space, like Code Pink and other people that are showing up and, and they're protesting to hands off and defending Iran. It is absolutely part of the rot of, of, of a faction within the very left part of my party.

Ben Shapiro (41:02)

Well, that is Senator John Fetterman. Senator Fetterman, you'll be pleased to know that actually the breaking news as of this morning was that the Israeli air force, the IDF, had struck 88 council members at the assembly of Experts. They were choosing Ayatollah Khamenei's successor. And breaking news this morning is that Israel bombed that gathering while the votes were being taken. So. And things are going poorly for the Iranian government at this point. Again, extraordinary transparency into what's going on in Iran from both Mossad and from the CIA and from all the intelligence apparatus. Pretty astonishing stuff. Senator Fetterman, thanks so much for your time and your bravery in standing up in favor of Western civilization.

John Fetterman (41:40)

Thank you. And the Israeli intelligence is just incredible. Incredible. And so I'm proud to stand with Israel through this. And now, just because it comes from a Republican president, it's like, why. Why can't we just acknowledge that the world is better and safer and more just, you know, what's happened now in Iran. So thank you.

Ben Shapiro (42:06)

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The Iranians are counting on this coalition, the lying left, the vast majority of the Democratic Party, except for Senator Fetterman apparently, and the Horseshoe right now, right away, let's make a distinction. You can and you should totally have questions for the Trump administration about the rationale for the Iran action. I mean, I think that We've been spending 47 years learning the rationale and I've spent many shows over the course of a decade explaining the rationale. This is why it was good for the Trump administration to kill Qasem Soleimani, is why it was good for President Trump to drop a big giant bomb on the Fordo nuclear facility. It is not as though these questions are new in the asking. And I'm sort of strangely mystified by people who are acting, again, as though history began literally three days ago and now we must ask these questions de novo. But okay, fine, fine, fine, fine. Ask those questions. The question, as always, is whether people are actually asking honest questions or whether they are not really asking questions, whether they are actually just doing Iranian propaganda work. That's really the question here. The honest questions can have honest answers. So, for example, Matt Walsh, he's been tweeting his skepticism of the war. And, and Caroline Levitt over at the White House responded in calm and concerted fashion to Matt's concerns. Quote. On Saturday, President Trump released a statement laying out clear objectives to the American people for Operation Epic Fury. Let me reiterate them. Destroy the Iranian regime's missiles and raise their missile industry to the ground. Annihilate the Iranian regime's navy. Ensure the regime's terrorist proxies can no longer destabilize the region or the world and attack our forces. Stop them from making and using IEDs or roadside bombs which have gravely wounded and killed thousands and thousands of people, including many Americans, guarantee that Iran can never obtain a nuclear weapon. Preventing this radical regime and its terrorist leaders from threatening America and our core national security interests is a clear eyed and necessary objective. Killing terrorists is good for America. 49 of the most senior Iranian regime leaders, including the supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have already been wiped off the face of the earth so far in the opening strikes of Operation Epic Fury. Finally, she as While Operation Midnight Hammer did obliterate Iran's major nuclear sites, the regime was fully committed to rebuilding their nuclear program. And they refused to make a deal despite months of extensive talks and good Faith efforts by President Trump's top negotiators. Simply put, the terrorist Iranian regime would not say yes to peace. For 47 years, the Iranian regime has actively and intentionally facilitated the killing of Americans while chanting death to America and funding other bloodthirsty terrorists seeking to destroy the United States and all of Western civilization. Prior American leaders were too weak and cowardly to do anything about it. Now President Donald J. Trump is correcting decades of cowardice and holding those responsible for the deaths of Americans accountable. Their brutal attacks and threats will finally end under President Trump. America will win. The terrorists will be defeated. Hey, so again, find Ask questions. Caroline Levitt gives answers. Or, or you could, you know, ask the again, non interventionist Vice President of the United States, J.D. vance. Here he was last night.

J.D. Vance (47:09)

In a perfect world. Yeah, we would love it if somebody came to power in Iran who was willing to work with the United States, who was willing to show some respect to the United States, and again, most importantly, made that long term commitment that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. But ultimately, Jesse, whatever happens with the regime in one form or another, it's incidental to the President's primary objective here, which is to make sure the Iranian terrorist regime does not build a nuclear bomb.

Ben Shapiro (47:38)

Now, again, it is totally fine to ask questions or be skeptical. That's America. You're welcome to it. And if you're asking a real question and a real answer is provided, you can change your opinion or you can disagree with that opinion. But that is not the same thing as people who are simply lying. And you can tell who's lying right now. Now at least you can say of the lying left that they are willing to call out the man who actually made the call here, Donald Trump, the horseshoe right, is busy spreading defeatist nonsense while simultaneously trying to avoid saying President Trump's name like he's Voldemort. That is because they are utter and complete cucks. Yes, cucks. And yes, because they love the algorithmic traffic. They are grifters. They are grifting for cash. They know that most Americans don't follow foreign policy all that closely, and so they can spew kind of whatever they want. And many of these folks only win if America loses, because then they get to claim that they were heroically standing up against a deep, dark conspiracy that only they could identify. So, so yesterday, Tucker Carlson, who is leader of the Cuck coalition here, yesterday on his show, he suggested that the war was being waged only not because America had any interest, only, only, only because Israel wanted the war, which of course, has been denied by the Trump administration. The facts are against it, but facts never got in the way of a, of a good clickable story for Tucker Carlson. This happened because Israel wanted it to happen. This is Israel's war. This is not the United States war. This war is not being waged on behalf of American national security objectives to make the United States safer or richer. This war is not actually even about weapons, mass destruction, nukes, chembio. No, this war is waged purely because Israel wanted it to be waged. Okay, so one of the things that's fascinating about Tucker show yesterday is he barely mentioned the man who is in charge of the war and declared it the President of the United States. Because Tucker is. Is a coward. He is a coward. Let me express again, the President of the United States is the one who commands the armed services of the United States. If Tucker wants to claim that Donald J. Trump is a tool of the Jews, which is clearly what he wants to say, he should just say it. But he's a coward. Not only is he a coward, he's a disseminator of absolute lies. Lies so bad that his Qatari handlers could not even justify the lies. So yesterday on his show, Tucker put out the bizarre theory that Mossad agents had been arrested in Qatar and Saudi Arabia trying to bomb targets, which of course makes zero sense since Qatar, Saudi and Israel are on the same side of this war. But here he was yesterday making a claim so overtly false that the government of Qatar, again, he's best friends with those people. He's got a nice house in Qatar. Apparently even they had to say they didn't know what the hell he was talking about. So it's probably not, hasn't been reported, but it's a fact that last night in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, authorities arrested Mossad agents planning on committing bombings in those countries. Now that's weird. It doesn't make any sense. Why would the Israelis be committing bombings in two Gulf countries which are also being attacked by Iran? Aren't they on the same side? No, no. Israel wants to hurt Iran and Qatar and UAE and Saudi and Bahrain and Oman and Kuwait. You might want to slow down on those out pouches, bud. I mean, seriously, because what the actual F are you talking about? Now we know what he's trying to do there. Tucker is trying to suggest that pretty much all attacks on everyone outside of Israel is a false flag operation. That's what he's clearly trying to suggest there. And I find it strangely suspicious that just a few hours later, the US Embassy in Riyadh was attacked by drones, according to the Saudi Defense Forces. So just a few hours after Tucker suggested that a false flag would basically occur in Saudi, there was a drone attack in Saudi from the Iranians, according to the Saudis. Strange. Very, very strong. But let's be real. Tucker has his conspiracy theory and he's sticking to it. And the idea is that the United States government is controlled by the Jews. That is, that is essentially the claim that he is making. Megyn Kelly has also jumped on this bandwagon, apparently for the clicks and giggles of it. No one should have to die for a foreign country. I, I don't think those four service members died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel. I, I think I understand how this helps Iran perfectly. Well, I get it. I mean, I hope long term, we'll see. But they seem rather jubilant. 80% of the country does not support the Ayatollah. He was a terrible, terrible man. No one's crying that he's dead. No normal person. But. But our government's job is not to look out for Iran or for Israel. It's to look out for us. And this feels very much to me like it is clearly Israel's war. Mark Levin wanted it. It's his war. Ben Shapiro, Lindsey Graham, Miriam Adelson. That's obvious. Okay, so first of all, the ugly suggestion that Mark Levin is somehow a traitor to the United States, that it's Israel's war and Mark Levin wanted it because it's Israel's war or I want it, or Lindsey Graham or Mary Madison. Really disgusting stuff from Megyn Kelly, but predictable at this point. You know whose war this is? President Donald J. Trump's war. He's the President of the United States. He commands the United States military. She is such a coward. She is such an unbelievable coward. You don't like President Trump. You don't like what he's saying. Just say his name, you coward. You unbelievable coward. Tucker and Megan, both unbelievable cowardice. Say his name. You won't. You won't. And of course, Megan is wildly inconsistent. In October 2024, she tweeted, quote, I was in the Situation Room when things got bad is not a response to, you haven't treated Iran like our number one threat. So there she was, labeling Iran our number one threat in 2024. But something has changed. Could it be clickable algorithmic idiocy? Of course. The issue here is not just that Megyn Kelly has some questionable principles and has been programming directly into the griper. Right? It is that she remains a coward. Remember, this is still the woman who says she is friends with Candace Owens and has literally nothing to say for months at this point about the lady who keeps attacking her supposed friend Erica Kirk, day after day after day after day. By the way, here's how Candace Owens spent her crazy day yesterday. Charlie was removed and in his place we got a Shabbat Shaloman not so grieving widow. This is the book my Charlie wanted you to read. He just finished it. He loves the Jews. He just finished speaking about how much he loves to Shabbat and to shalom and to say daddy's home and to throw down his phone. Barry Weiss. We are months into Megyn Kelly's silence on this. Months. After all, according to Megyn Kelly, she would rather die than condemn Candace. Very strange. For what reasons? Megan will go to the wall. Very, very, very strong. Very strange indeed. Meanwhile, mtg still wandering the wilds, but of course has a home on Megyn Kelly's show where she can spew her nonsense. Here she was implying that President Trump is going to hell. Meghan, this really needs to be said. Donald Trump has said repeatedly on camera and in interviews he doesn't think he's going to heaven. Well, I want to ask a question, a serious question. What is in his mind? What is his mental state if he doesn't think he's going to heaven? And he is a man, towards the end, he's in the fourth quarter, he's towards the end of his life. How does that pan out for the rest of us when we have a president of the United States who doesn't think and is convinced he's not going to heaven? What does that mean? His decision making is this disgusting conspiratorial nonsense. My goodness.

Ben Domenech (55:46)

Who.

Ben Shapiro (55:48)

How the horseshoe, right, has. Has gotten uglier and uglier day in and day out. Astonishing stuff. The President of the United States, by the way, was asked about the Tucker Carlson, Megan Kelly horseshoe, right, and he said, maga is Trump. Maga's not the other two. He said that Carlson can, quote, say whatever he wants. It has no impact on me, which is a pretty cold, cold rip from the president on Megyn Kelly. Trump said, megan was opposed to me for years when I ran the first time and nothing stopped me. And so, you know, some people are against and they always come back. She came all the way back, but now I guess she maybe doesn't like the idea of this war, but I do because I have to keep Nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranians. Yeah, that. That is the president being very, very, very nice. Now, again, the goal here from Iran is to provide fodder for all of these people, for the lying left and the horseshoe right, an attempt to shift Americans away from support. And of course, the polls are not particularly favorable toward this intervention by the United States. Not a gigantic shock, because as we'll discuss in a little while with Ben Dominich, the reality is that the president, in favor of a winning strategy, forewent making months of case about what to do. So right now, something like 59% of Americans, according to the new Reuters Ipsos poll, said say that they are against this sort of intervention. But here's the thing. In a short war with actual goals, the only thing that matters is whether we win or not. And that is not up to the podcast boys and girls. It is not up to the Democrats in Congress and outside Congress and the legacy media. It only matters if the president loses his metal. And President Trump, whose war this is and whose name I, I am happy to mention because he's the man who made the call, a courageous call, in my opinion. He says he's not losing his medal. You know, all you people who think he's going to get bored, he ain't bored.

Donald Trump (57:40)

Somebody said today, they said, oh, well, president wants to do it really quickly after that, he'll get bored. I don't get bored. There's nothing boring about this. Do you agree with that, Pete? I don't think there's anything, Mr. General. I think there's nothing boring about it. Somebody actually said from the media, I think he'll get bored after about a week or two. No, we don't get bored. I never get bored. If I got bored, I wouldn't be standing here right now. I guarantee you that.

Ben Shapiro (58:09)

Well, that is where we are. So here is a real question. You want to ask some real questions? Here's a real question. I'm getting this from a lot of folks, and it's a reasonable question. Are we safer now? And that question is really kind of two questions. Are we safer geopolitically, which means in real term, economically, and also long term, and are we safer in this very, very, very moment? So let's start with that second question first. Are we safer right in this very moment? And the answer is probably not, because we are never safer when we do foreign policy in the immediate term, never. There's never been a time in human history where when you do war, the people at home are suddenly like in that immediate term, safer. That's just not how conflict works. Yes, Iran has sleeper cells. Yes, they are incentivized to pursue terrorist attacks. And yes, Hezbollah and other wings of the democratic terror army operate globally. And yes, thanks to Joe Biden and Barack Obama and other open borders presidents, we imported a bunch of horrific, horrific people to the United States over the past few decades. The Daily Wire reported just yesterday that, quote, a D.C. area mosque pledged its loyalty on Sunday to our leader, Shahid Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, mourning his martyrdom after the Iranian dictator was killed in a US Israeli operation. The Manassas Mosque is a sponsor, alongside left wing groups like CodePink and the D.C. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, of a Stop the War on Iran march on the White House that was planned for Monday night. On its Instagram page, the mosque called Iran's dictator its leader and demanded an end to US Zionist aggression. So we have those people in our country. But let's be real, the DHS has gotten a lot better at this over the years. Our domestic counterterror capacities are far stronger than they were in the 90s. And most importantly, much more importantly, when it comes to making foreign policy, if the rule is we can never do anything in foreign policy that ever raises risks even slightly, or that we can never pursue any military action that ends with low military casualties but outside results, congrats. You basically just surrendered America's foreign policy. Like, that's the end of America's foreign policy. So just as by way of example, like a compare and contrast, take ISIS. So ISIS began gaining serious territory in 2014 under Barack Obama. And by December 2019, President Trump announced that ISIS had been essentially disintegrated in Syria and Iraq. But ISIS inspired attacks continue even to now. Since 2014, ISIS attacks have taken nearly 100 lives in the United States. The San Bernardino shooting, December 2015, 14 dead. The Pulse nightclub shooting, June 2016, 49 dead. The New York City truck attack, October 2017, 8 dead. The New Orleans truck attack just last year, January 15, dead, a lot more wounded. 11 stabbed at Ohio State in November 26, 2020. 16 rather, 10 stabbed in Minnesota in that same year. So here is the question. Should the United States have just left ISIS alone? In fact, should we just generally leave terrorists or terrorist regimes alone, even when they threaten our interests and spread their tentacles abroad? Well, it turns out we did try that one time. We tried it in Afghanistan with Al Qaeda. And it turns out the risks of inaction can be pretty, pretty big for those of Us who have memory longer than that of a guppy. But we don't have to refer back to 9, 11. Let us be real here. A terror regime in control of nuclear weaponry, which is what Iran was pursuing, or significant ballistic missile weaponry like long range ballistic missiles, plus a gigantic terror apparatus that threatens our allies and economic pipelines, including, by the way, the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC yesterday announced they had closed it. It's not true. You know why it's not true? Because we sank their entire navy, that's why. You know, it was good preventing them from having the capacity to shut the Strait of Hormuz because that creates serious geopolitical economic problems. Because 20% of global oil moves through the Strait of Hormuz. And by the way, leaving an Iran in place that is stronger, more powerful, more threatening, builds up the enemy coalition of China and Russia. What the United States is doing geopolitically is one of the great moves I have ever seen. Not just because it is cutting the head off of the snake in the Middle east, but because Iran acts as a connector between the two powers that are also most powerful and oriented against us. In China and Russia, the vast majority of Iran's oil went to China. The vast majority of Iranian weapon export went to Russia. And all of that is being threatened right now by the Trump administration. This is in fact a transformational moment. And an entire country can't be held hostage by threats of lone wolf terrorism, particularly a country with the strongest military in human history. The United States, in fact, should not be held hostage to any threat from a foreign country. That is literally the reason we have a government to exterminate threats foreign and domestic. So where are we? The answer is we are winning. We are winning. Here is the NATO Secretary General, Mark Rudy, supporting President Trump. Let me also say that the commander

Ben Domenech (62:51)

in chief, the leader of the free

Ben Shapiro (62:53)

world, President Donald J. Trump. I really commend what is happening here.

John Fetterman (62:57)

Taking out Khamenei, taking out the nuclear capability in Iran, but also taking out

Ben Shapiro (63:04)

the ballistic missile program in Iran.

Ben Domenech (63:06)

This is crucial.

Ben Shapiro (63:07)

And what I see in Europe, I spoke with all the key European leaders over the weekend, is widespread support for

John Fetterman (63:13)

what the President is doing and also making sure that when it comes to

Ben Shapiro (63:17)

logistics access, defending key US Interests in

John Fetterman (63:21)

Europe and in the region, the Europeans

Ben Shapiro (63:23)

are really stepping up. The regime's command and control in Iran is reportedly already cracking. I mean, it helps when every time they gather to select a new leader, Israel bombs it into obliteration. Iran's missile structure is so degraded that their pace of fire has tremendously slowed. Right now, they're stuck in a catch 22. The way that it works is that Iran, every time they light up a missile launcher, it gets blown up. If they light up too many missile launchers, they all get blown up. And then they have literally no forward capacity. So they've been shrinking their missile barrages down and down and down in the hope of sort of outlasting the commitment of Israel and the United States to go after those missile capacities. And so they've been relegated to firing off sort of random drones and random missiles here and there. That's going to slow over the course of the week even more. So here's the deal. Ask all the questions you want. It's a free country. Good questions deserve good answers. But understand just who the Iranian regime is counting on right now. Those who are lying, those who are doing its actual dirty work or promoting conspiracy theories and peddling bull. Because in the end, it turns out a lot of those people are happier with a nuclear Iran than a victorious America. The Jack Welch Management Institute at Strayer University helps you go from I know the way to I've arrived with our top 10 ranked online MBA. Gain skills you can learn today and apply tomorrow. Get ready to go from make it happen to made it happen and keep striving. Visit strayer.edu Jack Welch MBA to learn more. Strayer University is certified to operate in Virginia by Chevin as many campuses, including at 2121 15th Street north in Arlington, Virginia. Well, as we have been discussing all day and yesterday and the day before, there's been a lot of talk on the left and on the right about the supposed lack of justification given by the Trump administration in the run up to the the current operation in Iran. Joining me on the line to discuss is Ben Domenech, opinion editor at the DailyWear and host of the Big Ben show on Fox. Ben, of course, a brand new addition here at Daily Wire, which is just another reason you should grab your membership right now, become a subscriber because we have tons of great stuff going on. Ben is helping revitalize the opinion side of the Daily Wire editorial page. Ben, let's talk about your piece that I think is quite brilliant over the last 24 hours talking about why President Trump didn't really sell Americans on what he was going to do in Iran. What's the premise?

Ben Domenech (65:44)

Well, basically, the critique that had been emerging from Capitol Hill over the past several weeks, Ben, was that the administration, and the president in particular, needed to be saying more to build up American opinion in favor of action in Iran and also to prepare the ground for the fact that this is not going to be a quick smash and grab. This is not the same as Venezuela. This is not an exfiltration. This is something that's going to take weeks, potentially months, and it's going to have, you know, a lot of outside effects that are going to affect the world economy, energy prices, etc. That the President needed basically be out there more making this case. And I think that what the President realized, which is something that a lot of politicians maybe don't, he always has these perspectives on things that I think are, you know, come at things from a different angle than the traditional conventional wisdom. And I think that he realized that the American people really don't assess foreign policy decisions anymore based on the kind of buildup lead up to achieving certain ends. We all remember, of course, the George W. Bush administration and how much effort they put into making the case for the war with Iraq. And then, you know, ultimately, even though people bought into it, even though it had the kind of buy in at the time, you know, the results were the way that they were measured and the way that people judged them. And I think that in this case, the President understood the only thing that matters here is success. If we come out at the end with what is viewed as a win, the American people will all be behind it, whether they really were originally or not, and they'll be in favor of it because of that outcome. And I think that because of that, he felt that the, that the ability to surprise the Iranians, to basically have them negotiating up until the last second, even if he'd already made the decision internally, I believe he had weeks ago about what he was going to do, that that was actually more valuable for the cause of America and Israel and our allies in the region than any kind of seeding of the ground or, or long buildup that would have involved meetings and interactions with allies and everything else that we're used to that the Europeans really love. But Donald Trump actually hates.

Ben Shapiro (67:54)

Ben. One of the things that I think is pretty amazing about this is that somehow the United States did actually achieve the element of surprise, despite what, by all objective views should be a massive telegraph punch. I mean, we sent half the United States military over to this region, including, you know, numerous aircraft carriers, extraordinary levels of aircraft support, and all of the rest. I mean, you had pictures that were emerging from Ben Gurion Airport of gigantic tankers that could only be used for refueling, stacked up dozens high. And yet somehow surprise was still achieved. So this does speak to sort of the overall strategic ambiguity the President was pursuing here.

Ben Domenech (68:28)

The President has, has used this ability that he has to be ambiguous chaos agent when it comes to these foreign negotiations and national security concerns to great effect throughout his presidency. He's, he's doing it even more in this second go around. And I think that that's something that for whatever reason other nations still are not learning from. They're still negotiating with us as if they're dealing with the Obama administration or the Biden administration as opposed to dealing with Donald Trump and his unique approach to foreign policy. And I think that the other thing to consider about this, Ben, is that if you look back at the Millennium Challenge that they did, you know, this infamous war did years and years ago where they brought out this crusty old three star named Van Riper who was, was able to affect a, a major attack in that war game that eliminated a, numerous American ships, uh, even including an American carrier. He was able to do that by throwing a ton of things at the Americans while they were setting up Iran. For whatever reason. They didn't do that. And they still, I think were, were operating under the assumption that they were dealing with the kind of JV team that existed under Biden and Obama that we are all are familiar with when it comes to their failures as opposed to people who they should have been taking a lot more seriously, particularly given that buildup.

Ben Shapiro (69:47)

You know, Ben, one of the things that really is amazing about all of this is that the, the assumption that President Trump is now going to engage in some sort of long lasting occupation of Iran or that World War III is about to break out. I'm not sure how much Trump's critics have to be wrong before they finally acknowledge that they were wrong. The answer seems to be they never have to acknowledge that they were wrong on both the right and the left. It is a pretty astonishing thing that we are a year out from Operation Midnight Hammer, which was supposed to start World War iii. We're all still here, we're all still alive. We are going to hear that, that Iran was going to kill thousands of Americans regionally and also globally. So far, nothing remotely like that has materialized. I think that if you had to sort of peg where we are four days, three and a half days into this war, the outstanding success, it speaks for itself. What do you think the end game here looks like?

Ben Domenech (70:33)

Look, I think the end game here is still uncertain in the sense that we don't know what the result is going to be when it comes to the next Iranian leadership. But we know what we had with the prior Iranian leadership and we know how bad it was not just for America, but for our allies in the region. It was not just the way that they had targeted our forces over the years in aggressive ways that led to the loss of American lives, but also, you know, the negative effect that they had. As the leading state supporter of terror around the world. I also think that there are after effects of this that could significantly undermine China at a critical juncture in its history. And I think that that's going to be a little unpredictable. But one of the things that I do believe that we're going to see in all likelihood emerge from this is a new leadership that at least has the ability to have a different type of relationship with the west than it had before. And that's something that I think is going to be a positive, no matter what shape that that takes. The Iranian people have been at odds with their own leadership for so long. They have not been a people who are happy with it. We saw their willingness to go out and die by the tens of thousands in the streets in order to send a message to the world, a message that Donald Trump heard. And by the way, on that World War three front, at this point, can we just sideline that World War three talk? It's like net neutrality was going to end the Internet. Like it's that level of ridiculousness. And, and look, I understand that people can point to the mistakes that people have made in the past generations of people, including very authoritative people who thought that the Iraq war and other wars would lead to, to a domino effect that would be very positive in the region and that there would not be the kind of after effects that were negatives that we saw. But at a certain point when you are crying wolf for so long, we've got to just turn away and say we can't take you seriously anymore when it comes to your opinions on foreign policy. Maybe get something right for a change before we start listening to you again. I hope that, that listeners and readers, people who consume media across the, across this, the networks that are available to them online, that they're intelligent readers, that they are intelligent consumers of media, and that they tune out the people who are just screaming to high heaven that every single time Donald Trump decides to pull a trigger on something, it's going to lead to the world blowing up.

Ben Shapiro (72:44)

Well, that is Ben Domenech, the brand new opinion editor at Dailywire. Again, go subscribe@dailywire.com for all of his content and all of our other content. Ben, thanks so much for the time and great insights.

Ben Domenech (72:52)

Great to be on the team, Ben.

Ben Shapiro (72:54)

Alrighty, guys. Coming up, we'll jump right into the mailbag. You have to be a member to see that and also to submit your questions. Remember, in order to watch. Go check it out, become a member. Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us. Legal sent this list of everything we're not allowed to do in season two. We're gonna do all of it. We've got games, more celebrity guests. And yes, the mailbag is somehow worse. If you thought season one was extra, season two, we're doubling down. We're not supposed to be doing this exactly, but it's After Dark. Season 2 streaming on Daily Wire. Plus.