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The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2401 - INCREDIBLE: US Military Launches Most REMARKABLE Rescue Operation Of All Time
01:09:29
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The United States just pulled off the most remarkable rescue operation in military history. We'll go through every single detail, what it means for the future of the Iran war, and we will examine why so many Americans are now pretty much openly rooting against America. The United States military just pulled off truly one of the most audacious, spectacular rescue operations in world history. Truly world history. We're going to go through every jaw dropping detail because I mean, this is going to be 10 movies. It's unbelievable. No Man Left behind is not a motto for the United States. It's a thing we do. It's a promise. And America kept that promise, which is why we are awesome. Meanwhile, President Trump is of course turning up the heat on the regime leadership or, you know, the ones who are still alive. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is bringing down the hammer on the nieces of dead Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. They were living large in LA dressing like women get punished for dressing in Iran. We'll examine also why so many Americans are pretty much openly rooting against America, including some of our most brain dead friends on X. A lot to get to today. So let's start with this rescue operation. It's unbelievable. I mean, truly astonishing stuff. Let's start with why it was important. So America has complete military dominance over the Iranians. The Iranians have been reduced to firing desultory cruise missile barrages against Israel or against uae, firing drones against Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and harassing shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. But on a pure military level, we are dominating them. Anyone who is telling you differently is just lying to you. They're just lying. There's no ignorance about this. It's just a lie. We have currently flown some 12,000 sorties over Iran and until Friday they had shot down zero American planes. Well, apparently on Friday they shot down two American planes, an A10 Warthog, which is a relatively low flying plane, and the F15E which was shot down apparently by a shoulder fired rocket. But despite that military dominance, despite that military dominance, when that F15E Strike Eagle went down and it had the pilot inside and a weapons system officer inside. And we rescued the pilot, as we'll talk about. And then it was unclear what had happened with the weapons system officer. If we had not rescued that weapons system officer, if instead he'd been captured by the IRGC or its minions, because the IRGC was hunting all over the hills of Iran for this guy. They had put out a bounty on his head of some $60,000, which in Iranian dollars is a bajillion dollars, legitimately a bajillion riyals. Well, if the IRGC had gotten a hold of Americans, that would have become leverage for the IRGC in the same exact way that hostages were leveraged for Hamas. I know people are saying that they would have been treated as prisoners of war. We have. We have no evidence that that is the case, because the Iranians, of course, are very fond of marching American, quote, unquote, prisoners of war in front of cameras. In fact, they did this during the Barack Obama administration when they came into conflict with a small American vessel, and then they proceeded to take pictures of Americans on their knees with their hands behind their head. Well, we're currently in a hot war with the Iranians, so almost certainly the Iranians would have used his actual life to split the American public. They almost undoubtedly would have threatened to execute him publicly unless the war ended on their terms, because, again, they are a terrorist regime. So instead, the United States of America pulled off the most audacious, insane military operation in modern history. We moved hundreds, if not thousands of troops into enemy theater, built a small airstrip overnight, misdirected thousands of enemy troops and operatives, and then we extracted one American under fire more than a day after he originally dropped into Iran after his plane was hit. America kicks absolute ass. And one aspect of that ass kickage is that we deny our enemies the ability to stop us short in our war mission. And we'll get to what comes next. But first we have to talk about this insane story, because it really is a quite insane story. So the F15 Strike Eagle was struck over Iran on Friday. And this is a picture here of one of the ejection seats of one of the members of the crew. You can see it here. Both crew members lived. According to the New York Times, two crew members ejected from their fighter jet just seconds after it was hit by Iranian fire. That F15E Strike Eagle was the first fighter jet lost to enemy fire in the entire war, which, again, is just evidence of how dominant we have been militarily. And it crashed violently to the ground. Both Air Force officers were deep in hostile territory on Friday morning, alone and armed only with pistol. The plane's pilot was in constant communication with his unit. He was rescued almost immediately about six hours later by a force that included attack planes and helicopters under heavy fire. And there's video of all that. You can see people contemporaneously on the ground in Iran firing small weapons at helicopters. But the aircraft's weapon systems officer, according to the New York Times, was missing. So he had become separated from the pilot because, again, the plane was going down. And on the ground in Iran, he basically had to just survive on his own. Apparently, he was concussed in the immediate aftermath. He was unconscious, he woke up, he sent a signal, and then he proceeded to hike up a 7,000 foot ridgeline and then wedge himself into a crevice to hide from Iranian operatives. Because, as we'll talk about in a moment, the Iranians were looking everywhere for him. They knew that he was a key piece of leverage in this war. Meanwhile, US CENTCOM had prepared a statement that the plane had gone down and that the pilot had been rescued. And they were about to release that statement, but they didn't end up releasing it. Why? Well, because just as they were about to release the statement, this was 14 hours after the fighter jet was hit, US officials actually got a lock on the weapons officer's location via a beacon that he was carrying. And so they scrapped the statement because they didn't want to give additional information to the Iranians. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegset then called President Trump and told him they needed to keep information about the pilot's rescue as secret as possible because it would give away where people were in Iran. Meanwhile, Iran had launched a bunch of search parties and one of them had assembled at the base of the mountain where the weapons officer was hiding, according to the New York Times. Again, it's astonishing stuff. This is true movie stuff. So the CIA developed a deception plan to try to buy some time. They spread word in Iran that the airman had already been found and was already moving out of the country. And the hope was that the Iranians would redirect their resources from, like, the base of the mountain where he actually was hiding, to the roads out of the region to try to stop any sort of exit mission. And according to the Times, the CIA operation worked. It caused confusion among the Iranian forces hunting for the airmen. Then the Iranians decided to intensify their search and they went on the state's primary broadcaster, and they made an offer for A reward to capture the enemy's pilot or pilots and turn them over alive to security forces. So now you have a bunch of people who are watching. Now the pilot and the weapon systems officer were lucky in the fact not only that they ended up living, but the area where they landed was an area hostile to the Iranian government. When we say that a ton of Iranians hate the Iranian government, this is absolutely true. This is absolutely true. And there have been early reports that members of the Iranian population were attempting to obstruct the Iranian operatives in their attempts to find the weapons systems officer. US Military officials, meanwhile, were preparing a vast complex rescue mission involving 100 special operations forces led by elements of SEAL Team 6, Delta Force commandos and Army Rangers were on standby if if needed. The Wall Street Journal reports that troops led by CENTCOM brought a devastating array of firepower to keep the enemy at bay. They brought four B1 bombers, dropped nearly 102,000 pound satellite guided bombs. According to two US officials, MQ9 Reaper drones also struck suspected fighters as they approached within kilometers of the aviator's hiding site. So basically we're blowing people away as soon as they got within some sort of radius of the weapon systems officer. Now, meanwhile, we were still trying to determine whether this was him because a lot of people can put out signals, including the Iranians. The CIA had a special piece of technology unique to the agency to locate the airmen hiding in the crevice. U.S. and Israeli officials gathered intel to determine if the airman was alone, surrounded by Iranians or had been captured. Again pointing out Israel is an excellent ally helping us find our downed airmen. Well, once the Pentagon had confirmed who the guy was and that this wasn't actually the Iranians just sending out a false signal to lure us into some sort of trap. Hegseth rushed to the Oval Office and President Trump immediately gave his approval. He said, we have to get him. So that's when the actual rescue mission began. According to the New York Times. After dark, senior military officials waited and then they launched. Special operations helicopters loaded with commandos raced to the remote mountain site where he was waiting. A senior US Official says this is the most challenging and complex operation in the history of special operations. Because they had to do this in the mountains, they had to assume that Iranian forces would rush to attack them. And they didn't know how healthy or unhealthy the weapon systems officer was. As the commandos apparently landed on the objective. According to the New York Times, US and Israeli warplanes dropped bombs whose bright orange blast lit up the silhouettes of the surrounding mountains. And the commandos weren't in a live firefight because the Iranians were too far away, but they were firing their weapons continuously in order to avoid the possibility of Iranians rushing the site. So the wounded airman was then rushed to a helicopter. It whisked him off to this jerry rigged airstrip inside Iran. Special operations forces had built this kind of tiny airstrip in the middle of Iran for possible rescues or other contingencies. And the plan was to load him and all the rescue force onto two C130 aircraft to get them out of danger and out to Kuwait. But final twist of fate, it turns out the nose gear of at least one, impossibly both of those planes got stuck in the sandy dirt at the airstrip. So there was a contingency plan. Three smaller planes then landed carrying specialized teams and they made their way to the remote staging area. And according to the New York Times, the commandos and the injured weapon system operator were reloaded onto three newly arrived replacement aircraft. After the rescue team left, American warplanes bombed the two disabled planes rather than letting them fall into Iranian hands. And I have to say the propaganda on X is astonishing because we blew up these planes, okay? We blew up these planes to avoid the Joe Biden Afghanistan problem of just leaving useful military technology in the hands of the enemy. So there went two of our, some 600C, 130s. So he blew those up and the Iranians immediately took footage of this and said, look what we did, look what we were capable of. Okay, my dudes, let me explain how dominant the US military is. We lost one person, one in Iran and we mobilized 100 special operators. Massive military wherewithal, landed in your territory fast, found our guy, got out with zero casualties and blew up our own planes just because they were stuck in the sand. That's how dominant we are. Absolute domination by the United States military. An astonishing feat of logistics, firepower and, and will, by the way, because yes, it actually takes some guts to do what the United States just did, putting many men at risk in order to save one. And again, it's not possible to script a story this insane and also inspirational. So this pilot, this plane, they were shot down on good Friday. Saturday is when the search was going on. It was late Saturday night moving into Easter morning when the actual rescue took place. And apparently, according to Axios, President Trump said the west. The weapons system officer gave a short, unusual message over his radio after ejecting from the aircraft. He said, power be to God, A U. S. Defense official confirmed at Trump's account, but said the exact phrase was God is good. People who know the officer say that he was a religious person and it made sense for him to say that. And the defense official confirmed that account. It was not completely clear early on. We stuck with it and verified he was alive and not captured. And those who knew him said he's religious. One of the ways they were able to identify who it was that was talking is because he said God is good, which is just, just crazy and super American and wonderful in every way. And if it doesn't make you want it, this whole story doesn't make you want to pick up an American flag and start waving it. I don't know what's wrong with you. There's something wrong with you no matter where you stand politically. If this story does not make you want to pick up an American flag and wave it on behalf of the American military, I don't know what is wrong with you. President Trump put out a statement confirming the rescue of the Americans. Quote from President Donald J. Trump. We got him. My fellow Americans, over the past several hours, the United States military pulled off one of the most daring search and rescue operations in US History for one of our incredible crew member officers, who also happens to be a highly respected colonel and who I am thrilled to let you know is now safe and sound. This brave warrior was behind enemy lines in the treacherous mountains of Iran, being hunted down by our enemies, who were getting closer and closer by the hour, but was never truly alone because his commander and Chief Secretary of War, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and fellow war fighters were monitoring his location 24 hours a day and diligently planning for his rescue. At my direction, the US Military sent dozens of aircraft armed with the most lethal weapons in the world to retrieve him. He sustained injuries, says the President was he will be just fine. This miraculous search and rescue operation comes in addition to a successful rescue of another brave pilot yesterday, which we did not confirm because we did not want to jeopardize our second rescue operation. This is the first time in military memory that two US Pilots have been rescued separately deep in enemy territory. We will never leave an American war fighter behind. The fact that we were able to pull off both of these operations without a single American killed or even wounded just proves once again that we have achieved overwhelming air dominance and superiority over Iranian skies. The this is a moment all Americans, Republican, Democrat and everyone else should be proud of and united around. We truly have the best, most professional and lethal military in the history of the world, says the President. God bless America, God bless our troops, and Happy Easter to all. An insane story, and apparently we know that this pilot, this weapons systems officer operator, we know that he was surviving based on special training, survival, evasion, resistance and escape training. The Wall Street Journal has a good report talking about what that is. Basically, people who are flying over enemy territory are trained to survive in enemy territory. And that includes, according to the Wall Street Journal, a set of actions including sizing up the situation, addressing wounds, determining how to hide, value living, and that doing so might require enduring discomfort and learning the basics and then evade. So the pilot is supposed to have a rescue plan, a contingency plan before each mission for evading and executing an exit strategy. The downed aviator is going to need to know how to resist. In this particular case, the downed aviator had a pistol, but we don't actually know what he had to do and then finally escape. So apparently this downed aviator had to intermittently signal because he was afraid that if he continuously signaled, the Iranians would catch on to where he was and then they would capture him. Amazing, amazing stuff. And as former CENTCOM commander General Frank McKenzie says, the most amazing thing here is that yes, we have the aircraft, yes, we have the military capacity, yes, we have the expertise, but we also have the value of leave no man behind.
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Every time we send aircrew over enemy territory, we have detailed, elaborate plans to go get them. It's a very basic part of who we are as American fighting men and women. So that plan swung into action. I think it was executed pretty effectively. As always. You've got somebody on the ground, may be injured, they got to get to a position where they can hide until you can get to them. All that seemed to work out very well. And you know, we did in fact lose a couple of aircraft in that mission. But I would just tell you it takes a year to build an aircraft. It takes 200 years to build a military tradition where you don't leave anybody behind, you take the aircraft, trade any day in a situation like this.
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This is exactly right. So here's the thing. Not only is this just a great kick ass American story that should be inspirational to everybody, it also is really important because we are in fact drawing nearer to the end of this campaign in Iran. All right, in a second we'll get to what happens next after this rescue operation. First, you know, I've been working with PureTalk for six years now. I wanted to work with a wireless company that shares my values and actually delivers me a great service. At a great price. And that's what PureTalk does. Their veteran led. So helping veterans is a huge thing to them, which is awesome. They've donated over half a million dollars to America's Warrior Partnership, a fantastic organization that's on the front lines of preventing veteran suicide. And PureTalk is creating an American jobs with a US only workforce. Sure, it'd be a lot cheaper to send jobs overseas like other companies do, but they're committed to delivering the best experience possible for their customers. And of course, I love Pure Talks service. They give you the same tower, Same network, same 5G coverage as the big guys, but for a fraction of the price. Again, I'm paying less money for the same service and it's going to a company that I actually like. I know, pretty simple. You should do the same thing. Go do the same thing. Go to PureTalk.com Shapiro switch to PureTalk today. That's PureTalk.com Shapiro and switch to my wireless company and America's wireless company, Pure Talk Once more, that's PureTalk.com Shapiro to get started today. Also, the Daily Wire used to be a small business. We started from the ground up. So let's talk about the importance of small business, the backbone of the American economy. These are the people who actually create value in America. There are 36.2 million small businesses around the country. More than 70% of them say they need additional capital at least once a year. You'd think a record high in small business revenue would encourage banks to open the floodgates. But actually big banks have been tightening, underwriting and approving fewer loans than ever. So you got the bureaucracy, the red tape, the endless paperwork. It turns that funding process into a marathon. Sometimes it takes months. Entrepreneurs, people like us are often left waiting, watching opportunity pass by. It's a perfect example of how America's most productive citizens are forced to fight uphill battles. Choose just to keep building the economy everybody else relies on. But if you want bank rates without the bank delays, you should check out Cardiff Co Shapiro for up to $500,000 in same day funding. Cardiff is the largest privately held small business lender in America. They've already funded over $12 billion since 2004. Their application takes less than five minutes. No hit. Your personal credit businesses can be approved and funded the same exact day. That's what happens when private enterprise cuts through the red tape. Efficiency, innovation, and actual results. For the folks building the economy from the ground up, like you, like me, banks try to lock out small businesses. Cardiff has the key. Big banks May not want to approve your business loans. Cardiff does if you've been in business for at least a year. If you're pulling in 20 grand a month in revenue, apply now for up to $500,000 in same day business funding at Cardiff Co Shapiro. Again, that's Cardiff Co Shapiro Real growth fastfunding. Cardiff Borrow better. So to determine what comes next, we first have to determine objectives. So Wednesday night, which is a long time ago now, but I was off for Passover. The President gave a national address talking about what exactly he wanted to accomplish here. He started off by saying there can be no nuclear weapon in Iran.
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From the very first day I announced my campaign for President in 2015, I have vowed that I would never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. This vernacular regime has been chanting death to America, death to Israel for 47 years. Their proxies were behind the murder of 241Americans in the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, the slaughter of hundreds of our service members with roadside bombs. They were involved in the attack on the USS Cole and they carried out the countless other heinous acts, including the blood. Just horrible, bloody atrocities of October 7th in Israel. Something that most people have never seen anything like it. This murderous regime also recently killed 45,000 of their own people who were protesting in Iran. 45,000 dead. For these terrorists to have nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat.
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Now, as the President pointed out in the speech, he said, listen, we tried diplomacy over and over and over and over. Iran continued to reject the diplomacy. Here's the President last Wednesday.
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My first preference was always the path of diplomacy. Yet the regime continued their relentless quest for nuclear weapons and rejected every attempt to at an agreement.
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The President in that speech said that the next two to three weeks would be the decisive point in the war. He said that we were going to hit them hard over the next two to three weeks.
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We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We're going to bring them back to the Stone Ages where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing. Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change. But regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders. Death. They're all dead. The new group is less radical and much more reasonable. Yet if during this period of time, no deal is made, we have our eyes on key targets.
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Okay, so that last point, that there is a more moderate regime in place, we have yet to see the public evidence that that is in fact the case. There are apparently cracks inside the Iranian regime. Unclear with whom the United States is currently negotiating. Are we negotiating with Muhammad Khaliba, who's the head of the parliament? Are we negotiating with the President Masoud Pjeshkin, who's widely perceived as a weak, weak horse in the Middle East? We're certainly not negotiating with the IRGC because they themselves have basically said they're willing to ride this thing all the way into the Ashman of history. Well, on Thursday, the United States blew up the B1 bridge in Iran. The B1 bridge is a very, very large structure in Iran. We blew a hole in it. Again, one of the reasons that you blow up bridges is because military material is moved via bridge. And as we are going to discuss more widely, there's been a lot of talk about quote, unquote, war crimes. War crimes meaning the targeting of dual use resources. Dual use means that it can be used for military purposes and also for non military purposes. So if you target an electrical grid and that electrical grid is used by the military and it's also used by civilians, then is that necessarily a, quote, unquote, war crime? The answer is no, it is not necessarily a war crime. It depends on the proportionality of what you are doing. What is the objective you are seeking to achieve? How effective is the taking down of an electrical grid and actually achieving that military end? And how many people have to be damaged? It turns out that the laws of war have a lot of shades of gray to them. And so anybody who is telling you that it's a war crime to bomb a bridge. Well, no, it depends on the bridge and it depends on the military purpose of bombing the bridge, because every bridge is, of course, an object and the object can be used for many reasons. Meanwhile, President Trump on Friday put out a statement on truth Social, saying basically that he just needs more time. Quote, with a little more time, we can easily open the Hormuz Strait, take the oil and make a fortune. It would be a gusher for the world. President Trump. So some of what the President is doing here is, of course, talking down the market. He's trying to tell people that this thing is coming to an end, that it'll just take a little bit more time. And of course, that seems to be a veiled reference to the taking of Kharga island, which the President mentioned all the way back in 1987. The president has a habit of actually doing the things he said he would do 40 years ago. So it would not be a gigantic surprise for the United States to simply take Cargill island, which is the source of 90% of the of all Iranian oil exports. The Iranian economy is 60 to 65% oil exports and it's 30 to 35% petrochemical exports, which we'll get to in just a little while. Then finally on Sunday, the President's patience is gone. And the President put out a statement that has launched a thousand think pieces because he used a bad word. He used a naughty word. He actually used two naughty words here and people are very upset about the naughty words he said. Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the effing straight. There are some charms. The fact that effing. He didn't actually put the G, it was effing with an apostrophe. Effing straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah. President Donald J. Trump. Okay, I know there are some people who are upset about this. I know there are a lot of people who are suggesting that the tweet itself is a war crime. Okay? No, it's not. Second of all, when he says that it's going to be power plant day and bridge day again, it depends on which power plants and which bridges and how much of an asset they are to the regime. Yes. If we just blew up a bridge in the middle of an Iranian town, far from the fighting centers, that has nothing to do with the material goal of the war. That would in fact be a violation of the laws of war, such as they are, or American military standards. However, if you blow up a power plant because the power plant is generating the power on behalf of the irgc, if you blow up a petrochemical facility because it is a key element in funding the continuation of the Iranian regime, that is a different story. The President added in a follow up that Iran's deadline would be Tuesday, 8pm Eastern. Of course, that is, you know, a day and a half from now as far as the Strait of Hormuz. The fact is that Iran does not have basically any regular naval assets, as the Wall Street Journal points out. The real problem is that Iran has about a thousand miles of coastline along the Persian Gulf dominated by mountains and caves, tunnels under the rocks, ones hidden by mangroves in salt caves. There's an island called Kesham Island. It's particularly problematic. So can we reopen it? The answer is we certainly can. It will take, you know, a serious military operation to do. So. We'll get to more on this in just one moment. First, when, when we built Dailywire. It was a giant risk because business is risk, it is taking on risk. But you need help when you take on that risk. You need the best business partners. And this is why we rely on 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. Getting started is incredibly easy. With hundreds of ready to use templates, you can build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style. 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It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com Shapiro head on over to shopify.com Shapiro that is shopify.com Shapiro well in the meantime, mediators, particularly via Pakistan have been trying to make a last ditch push for some sort of 45 day ceasefire. They've now reduced that apparently to a 20 day ceasefire or so. According to Axios, the US Iran and a group of regional mediators are discussing the terms for a potential 45 day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent talk to the end of the war. According to four u. S Israeli and regional sources with knowledge of the talks. Of course is Barack Reviewed reporting which means that it's the as always restrainer wing of the Trump administration that is leaking to him. Those are the people who talk to Barack Ravid. The sources said that the chances for reaching a partial deal over the next 48 hours are slim. And they're not slim because the United States is not willing to make a deal. The deal that we would absolutely make right now is give us your nuclear materials and reopen the strait. That would be it. Those are the two chief priorities at this point for the administration. Nuclear materials out because we know they have enriched uranium to 60% and reopen the strait. And Iran doesn't want to do that. And you have to ask yourself why doesn't Iran want to do that? And the answer is because the Iranian economy is so weak that they had millions of people out in the streets before the war, before the war. Understand the situation the Iranian regime finds itself in by its own making. Three years ago, Iran thought of itself as bestride the Middle east with the octopus arms of its terror proxies all the way from Yemen up three through Lebanon and Syria and Iraq. And then because of October 7th, those terror proxies got absolutely hammered. Hamas basically turned into a vestigial organ. Hezbollah so reduced in its power that the Israeli military can simply push up into Lebanon and blow the bridges on litany to prevent Hezbollah from re entering southern Lebanon. Hezbollah hit so hard that the Syrian regime actually fell. The terror arms of Iran has been cut off one by one over the course of the last couple of years. And meanwhile, two direct wars now in Iran have destroyed Iran's air defenses, destroyed its navy, destroyed its air force, none of which exist anymore, and reduced it to basically shooting tens of thousands of people in the streets in order to maintain power. And they have no functional economy. As we pointed out on the show, the Iranian government had been using methodologies of tyrannical states essentially to maintain a 42,000 real to the American dollar exchange rate. And the only way they could do that, because the real is worth actually nothing, is by threatening that anyone who engaged in black market currency exchange or bought product that the Iranian government didn't know about from abroad would be prosecuted, jailed, killed, whatever, while they lost total control of the riyal at the end of last year. And suddenly that fake exchange rate, that 42,000 to $1 exchange rate skyrocketed to 900,000 rial to the dollar. And before the war it was up to 1.4 million rial to the dollar, which is to say money is worthless in Iran. There is no economy. And that's why people were out in the streets before the war. Well now they've been reduced in their military capacity. Their ballistic missile launchers are largely gone. They're forward capacity with their terrorist arms basically gone. Their nuclear program under mountains of rock. So what do they have left? How do they maintain power with no economy, with no ability to pay their guys with no forward capacity? What can they do and the answer is, the only thing that they can do truly, is race to a nuke. That is the only thing they can do. They can race to a nuke. And that is what prompted presumably this current action was the idea that Iran was so trapped, the only way they could break out was. Was a breakout to a nuclear weapon and turn themselves into a hermit state like North Korea. So that is the reason why they won't just give up the nukes. If they give up the nukes, they're gone. They know it. If they give up their nuclear capacity or the race to a nuke, then they are a weakened military structure sitting atop a population of 90 million people, most of whom hate them. And that is incredibly dangerous for them. And so now the real question is going to be making permanent that state of affairs, because let's say that the regime does not go down right now, which it probably will not. If the regime does not go down in the next few weeks, then the question becomes, how does the United States achieve its goals? Well, one, we obviously need to get the nuclear materials that might involve some sort of special operation like the one we just saw to save the American pilots. And two, we can leave their economy in tatters so that they do not have the capacity to pay their own guys. This, by the way, is precisely what happened with Bashar Assad in Syria. Bashar Assad had his Praetorian guard, and he stopped being able to pay them. And his Praetorian Guard, which was partially comprised of Hezbollah, had been hit so hard that there was no one left to guard him. And so he fled. This is presumably why Israel has now hit Iran's largest petrochemical facility, responsible for about 85% of all petrochemical exports in the country, which is to say 30 to 35% of the Iranian export economy. And again, it wouldn't be necessary for the United States to actually grab Hog Island. It would not. If the United States did two things. This war basically be over. If the United States did a special operation to seize nuclear materials, that would take that priority off the table. And two, if the United States just bombed Kharg island, forget about actually taking it. If the United States just destroyed it, which we could easily do, because, again, complete air superiority, the Iranian economy would no longer be extant. It would not have any capacity at all. Their petrochemical facilities would be gone. Their oil export facilities would be gone. Their economy would be complete toast, complete toast. And then even if they ended up with some sort of vestigial control of the Strait of Hormuz, they wouldn't have, presumably, the guys, they could pay to keep it closed so we could bomb those areas, or two, we could do what President Trump has threatened to do and just leave it for the Asians and the Europeans and say, listen, you guys get your oil from there, but guess what? We don't get our oil from there. The amount of oil that moves via the Strait of Hormuz, that ends up in the United states. Of the 100% of oil moving through the Strait of Hormuz, 2.5% of it goes to the U.S. the vast majority of it goes to China and Japan. China gets one third of all their imported oil from the Strait of Hormuz. Do you think that the Chinese want the Strait of Hormuz permanently closed? And let's be clear. Even if Iran were to keep it closed and then toll, all those ships that are moving through, that would not make up, not remotely for the loss of Kharga island and their petrochemical facilities. There's not a tax that people can pay to move through the Strait that would actually pay for all of that. And so they would be forced, presumably, to put confiscatory rates on all of those ships. And then the question is, does China want that? Does Japan want that? Do the Europeans want that? Right. That is the calculation that's currently taking place on a military level. Meanwhile, Israel is not ending its destruction of the IRGC regime. Israel took out yesterday Iran's intelligence chief, a guy named Majid Khademi. He was probably the number two ranking person in irgc. So, again, they keep appointing people and those people keep dying. Well, you knew that the Europeans were going to be complete pansies about all of this, because that is their way. Emmanuel Macron is, quote, unquote, advocating for a third way. This is last Friday in South Korea. Well, as Norman Schwarzkopf once famously supposedly said, going to war without the French is like going to war without an accordion, and we don't actually need them. In other words, I'm not sure exactly why we would be listening to the ravings of Emmanuel Macron. Here he was.
- [36:37]
E
But I don't believe that we will fix the situation just by bombings or by military operations. Look at what happened with this type of operation in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya. We never delivered, never, even after 20 years. So you have to respect the sovereignty of people. If people want to change the regime, they want to react, step up. They can do so. Having such an agenda shared by Korea, France, and bringing with us the other Europeans Canada, Japan, India, Brazil, Australia. You start having a sort of third way. Those who don't want to be dependent on China or aligned by definition with the us.
- [37:33]
B
Well, let's see how that goes for you. Seriously, if you remain unaligned with the United States, but you also want to stay out of the clutches of China, let's be real. I don't think it's going to work out all that well for you, because we'll see how Europe defends itself when we decide that basically your problems are your problems. So President Trump did an interview with the UK Telegraph. He was asked if he would reconsider the US's membership in NATO. And he said, oh, yes, I would say it's beyond reconsideration. I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger. And Putin knows that, too. We've been there automatically, including Ukraine. Ukraine wasn't our problem. It was a test. We were there for them. We would always have been there for them. They weren't there for us. And now, again, I think it's in the United States's interest to stop Russia from ingesting Ukraine. But his point about NATO is correct. We would have protected NATO, we would have protected Ukraine regardless of whether there was a NATO. But is it. Is it reciprocal? Does NATO help us when we require the help? Especially when it's in their interest? Every single country in Europe understands that the IRGC is a threat to them and their interests and their oil interests via the Red Sea and via the Persian Gulf, and they won't do a damn thing. Well, Secretary of State Rubio, who again is quite pro European, he said, you know, you break it, you bought it. You don't want to be our friends. Well, then it's not going to go that well for you with us.
- [38:48]
F
One of the reasons why I've been a supporter of NATO is because I believe that these basing rights give us leverage and give us flexibility and operational capability all over the world. But if NATO is just about us defending Europe if they're attacked, but them denying us basing rights when we need them, that's not a very good arrangement. That's a hard one to stay engaged in and say, this is good for the United States, so all of them is going to have to be reexamined. All of it's going to have to be reexamined.
- [39:16]
B
Okay, so again, he is not wrong about all of that. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is basically responding with, you know, their usual impotent or semi impotent outrage here is a chart of the Iranian regime and. And who has died inside the Iranian regime at this point. Yeah, that. That's a lot of dead people inside the Iranian regime. It has not gone well for them. Every one of those markers that is in black and white or with a small red insignia on it, those are the people who are dead. That is a lot of people in their regime who are gone. A lot of people who are gone at this point. And so what they are left to do at this point is basically outlast. Now, let's say the Iranian regime survives, but it's a rump regime. They're losing their power. The only thing they can do is shoot their constituents in the streets. They don't have an economy to speak of. They don't have any forward operating power to speak of. Every so often they can fire a missile at Israel. That puts people in their basements for a few minutes. All they can do is threaten the UAE or Bahrain with some drones. If that's what they are reduced to, then the war has been a massive success. China, for its part, is trying to prop up the Iranians because China recognizes that if Iran were to actually flip into some sort of secularized pro America regime, then they would be in serious economic trouble, because again, 33% of all oil imported into China is coming via the Strait of Hormuz, and 13% of all Chinese oil that is imported is coming directly from Iran. So China utilizes Iran basically as its gas station. But will even they have an interest in propping up Iran? If it turns out that Iran is now taxing Chinese ships, how's that going to work out particularly well for them? Will they seek to find some sort of off ramp with Saudi Arabia, the US UAE and all the rest? Well, the other thing that the Iranians are doing is they're relying on their useful idiots in the United States. Mohammed Khaliba has decided that tweeting like Theo Vaughn on Joe Rogan is probably the best strategy here. So he tweeted out. Your reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living hell for every single family. And our whole region is going to burn because you insist on following Netanyahu's commands. Make no mistake, you won't gain any through war crimes. Okay, so I'm just going to point out that if you are in the United States right now, which I assume you are, if you're listening to the sound of my voice, because the vast majority of our listeners, like nearly all of them, are American, do you consider yourself to be living in a Living hell right now. So this is a war between one country where everybody is suffering somewhat higher gas prices temporarily and another country that has no functioning government, a terrorist state that shoots people in the streets, and all of that leadership class has been killed. So I don't, I don't know, I'm not going to take that with a lot of seriousness, but you can always count on the useful idiots, people who truly hate America at this point. I mean, I don't know how else to characterize this. I don't know how you characterize a belief that America should be less powerful in the world, that America should lose, that would be better if America lost as anything but hating America. I can't think of a single military conflict, including military conflicts with which I disagreed. I, for example, did not think the United States should be involved in Libya, in which I was hoping that America would lose. I might have thought that the involvement was not correct. But the idea that it would be better for America to lose is anti American, period. Definitionally, Ryan Grim, who's become a favorite on the Horseshoe, right, and the grievance party, right, suddenly quoted by all of these people who have decided that isolationism is the way he put out an actual tweet saying this. So Sean McGuire, who's an investor, put out a tweet saying, how did we get to the point where so many Americans are rooting against America? And Ryan Grim over at Drop Site News, which is a left wing misinformation propaganda site, put out the statement, quote, if this is an honest question, I'd say Americans are rooting against America because we facilitated a genocide. Presumably this would be Israel's action against Hamas, which was not in fact even remotely close to a genocide, and followed it with a surprise attack on a girls elementary school, followed by attacks on universities, medical centers, more schools, a world famous pharmaceutical research center, a volleyball team, an unfinished bridge we claimed was transporting weapons, and then a nuclear power plant. We are now promising endless attacks on civilian infrastructure. Okay, so again, every single thing he is saying there is a lie. And the reason I say it's a lie is because we have hit those sites because they are dual use sites, except for the ones that we hit by accident. If you, if you truly believe that the American military is so evil that we target girls schools for the fun of it, that there's no military usefulness, no mistakes made, that we just decided to get up one morning and murder a bunch of schoolgirls, get the hell out of the country. Seriously. You hate the country and you hate the military. There is no other way to explain what you are saying. There's no other way to explain it. You think Pete Hegseth and President Trump are sitting around drawing up a target list and they say, you know what? Just for good measure, let's kill a bunch of Iranian schoolgirls? Is that what you think? If you think that you despise America again, you can oppose the war. You can oppose the way that the war is being fought. You can have problems with the general overall strategy. You can have honest questions about the war. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about people openly hoping that America loses because they do not like America, because they think a more powerful America in the world is a bad thing. And Iran is counting on these people to undermine support. Again, this is nothing new. This happened throughout American history. If you go back to the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong were counting on moron university students to claim that the real bad guys versus, you know, the communists who are murdering hundreds of thousands of people, that the real bad guys were actually the United States. And that's why you had them literally chanting in solidarity with Ho Chi Minh. Same sorts of people now, and they span a large swath of the left and a large part of the right now, or at least a significant part of the online right. I shouldn't say a large part of the right because again, it's not true. But Ryan Grim and Tucker Carlson are holding hands, walking off into their common isolationist, anti American future together. Tucker Carlson put out a tape over the weekend celebrating the end of the US led world order here. He was saying a bunch of untrue things, which is what he does for a living now while selling nicotine made in India.
- [45:43]
G
What's happening in Iran is the end of American empire as we understand it. And that's sad. Boo hoo. Empire's dying. But it's not the end of the United States. It's not the end of our influence on other nations, hopefully positive influence. It's not the end of our economy. It's the beginning of a very rough time in our economy, of course, but it's hardly the end of it. What we've been doing for likely your lifetime, if you're under 80, is, well, it's not working anymore. It hasn't actually helped the United States long term. Your grandkids at this point don't have the promise of a better life than you had. So it's not actually a successful experiment. And now it's ending because we've reached the limits of our demonstrated power. We can't open the Straits of Hormuz. The President United States said that last night. Someone else do it. So we're done. That's okay. It was always going to end. Hopefully we can get out without a nuclear exchange. But now it is ending.
- [46:48]
B
It was okay. It's okay if that happens. And it'd probably be good if that happens because you've been lied to for generations. Okay, I'm just going to point out he is a liar. He's a liar on economics, on military power, on all of it. He's gotten all of it dead wrong. Remember this schmuck was telling you last year we were going to be in World War 3 if the United States struck a nuclear facility with 1B2. Has he been right on a single thing all along the way here? What has he been right on? And also, why didn't you say the thing, by the way? He went even further than this. He called President Trump a war criminal the weekend. That's another thing that he spent time doing here. He was doing that.
- [47:24]
G
Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham, shows up at the White House yesterday
- [47:30]
B
to
- [47:30]
G
pray over the President. So he will have wisdom and restraint. No. To endorse the murder of civilians, which is a war crime, but more important, it's a moral crime. You can't kill people who have committed no crime, who did nothing wrong. You can't murder the innocent.
- [47:51]
B
You can't point out here that Tucker Carlson is perfectly fine with Vladimir Putin killing people who have committed no crime. He literally said so. He said that's what leaders do. Tucker Carlson has been super pro Russia throughout the entire Russia, Ukraine conflict as Russia targets civilians. He has been extraordinarily pro Iran throughout this entire conflict after Iran murdered some tens of thousands of people in the streets and has facilitated the murder of civilians all over the Middle East. As to his argument, his generalized argument, which is that somehow the last post World War II almost century of history, past 80 years of history, has been a giant fail for America. Do you know how ignorant of American history you have to be to actually argue that destroying the Soviet Union, that building the single most powerful economy in the the history of planet Earth is somehow a giant l. That is a lie. That's a lie and the statistics prove it's a lie. News story from the Wall Street Journal, quote, america's middle class is becoming wealthier as more families scale the economic ladder into higher earning groups. New research shows the ranks of the affluent have grown markedly over the last 50 years or so. This would be the period that Tucker says is terrible. While the lower rungs of the middle class have shrunk, in 2024, about 31% of Americans were part of the upper middle class, up from about 10% in 1979. So the ranks of the upper middle class jumped 300% since 1979. But this is a giant fail. According to Tucker Carlson, the only solution is to give up power to China and Russia, which, again, is a thing he has said in the last two weeks. The American Enterprise Institute report classified a family of three earning 133,000 to $400,000 in $2024 as upper middle class. Households earning more were categorized as rich. In 2024, about 19% of American families were considered poor or near poor. And that's not great. But you know what that stat was in 1979? 30%. By the way, it's not just AEI. A Pew Research analysis used a different methodology, and they found that in 2023, 19% of Americans fell into an upper income group. That's up from 11% in 1971. So again, the idea here is what? That America has been a giant fail this entire time and that it's good for American empire to end. It's a wonderful thing. He literally had on a Chinese propagandist professor who believes that the Rothschilds and the and the Masons are controlling the world and called the guy a prophet. Again. Meanwhile, former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who doesn't have two neurons to rub together, she put out a statement, too. On Easter morning, this is what President Trump posted. Everyone in his administration that claims to be a Christian needs to fall on their knees and beg forgiveness from God and stop worshiping the president and intervene in Trump's madness. Again, listening to Marjorie Taylor Greene lecture everyone else on morality is a hell of a thing. Knowing her personal history. I know all of you and him, and he has gone insane and all of you are complicit. I'm not defending Iran.
- [50:58]
H
But. But.
- [51:02]
B
As always, whenever you have a sentence and there is a but in the middle of the sentence, whatever came before that but does not matter. I'm not defending Iran. But let's be honest about all of this. The strait is closed because the US And Israel started the unprovoked war against Iran based on the same nuclear lies they've been telling for decades that any moment Iran would develop a nuclear weapon. So, okay, so the idea is here that Steve Wyckoff and Jared Kushner and the iaea, they're all lying. They're all lying. You know who has nuclear weapons? Israel says. Mtg. Yes, Israel does have nuclear weapons. Does it? Doesn't America feel threatened by Israeli nuclear weapons? Do any. Do any of our allies feel threatened by Israeli nuclear weapons? If so, I would love to hear how. But these are the people that Iran is counting on to help out. Meanwhile, Candace Owens put out her usual melange of insanity. She put out a tweet. This is a satanic administration. We all realize that satanic Zionists occupy the White House and Congress needs to move to have the mad King Trump removed. All of our lives may depend upon other countries realizing Trump is deeply unwell and surrounded by religious fanatics who have convinced him that he is a messiah. What in the world is she even talking about? What in the. What is she talking about? You know, probably she'll provide us evidence of this the same time that she provides evidence that Egyptian planes were linked to the murder of Charlie Kirk. We're in uncharted territory, she tweets. And then leave it to the grievance party right and left and the anti Trump forces to just endorse Candace Owens Tweet people like Tim Miller of the Bulwark quote, the satanic Zionist clause undermines an otherwise compelling Critique of Trump 2.0. I love it. I love when you have people like Tim Miller who man, selling your soul for a. For a salary at the Bulwark is a hell of a thing to do. So leave aside these satanic Zionist clause and the rest of her insane craziness is totally right. Pod Save America's Jon Favreau endorsed the Candace tweet as well with a retweet. Just wonderful, wonderful people. So here's the thing. The President is not listening to them and he shouldn't listen to them because why would you listen to people who believe that it is a good thing for America to be weaker in the world? Why would you listen to people who believe that the President of the United States is deliberately targeting civilian schoolgirls? The answer is you wouldn't. The answer is you wouldn't. Because those people, they don't like America very much. They don't. What they will say is, no, I like a different form of America, an America in my head. Well, that America doesn't exist. The America that exists is the America that you live in right now, the one where President Trump is the president, the one that ensures the freedom of the seas and the free flow of commerce, the America that fights off terror nations, the America that protects our allies. The America that does not wish to see the world's worst people with the world's worst weapons. That's the America you live in right now. Do you like that America or do you hate that America? And don't give me this bullcrap about how you like a form of America that you've built in your own head. See, here's the thing. When Joe Biden was president, I still loved America cuz America is awesome. I didn't like Joe Biden as president very much, but I still loved America. I wasn't rooting against America. And again, there's a difference, I'll say it again, between having questions about the war, which is perfectly legit in any war. Any government policy can be questioned. There's a difference between that and the kind of anti American nonsense that is now being pressed forward on some of the most well listened to podcasts and shows in America. There is a vast difference. If you are, if you are going on Joe Rogan's show as Theo Vaughn did over the course of last week, last week and just spewing utterly ignorant nonsense that implicates the United States in war crimes and claims the United States is somehow the bad guy in the war with Iran, let me suggest that you have your morality checked or your knowledge checked or something of the sort. You know, I'm not, I'm not the one claiming that the Irvine has anything valuable to say on this, but apparently other people are. I think the Yovon super funny and that's about it. But if Iran is counting on those people to somehow get them out of the situation they've created for themselves, good luck to them. Meanwhile, in the United States, Secretary Rubio has announced that he is revoking the green cards of foreign nationals with ties to the Iranian terror regiment. According to the statement from the State Department last night, the niece and great niece of deceased IRGC Major General Qasem Soleimani were arrested by federal agents following Secretary of State Marco Rubio's termination of their lawful permanent resident status. Hamida Soleimani Afshar and her daughter are now in custody of ice. And it turns out that these people promoted Iran regime propaganda, celebrated attacks against American soldiers and military facilities in the Middle east, praised the new Iranian Supreme Leader, denounced America as the Great Satan, and voiced unflinching support for the irgc. Meanwhile, they enjoyed a lavish lifestyle as shown on Instagram accounts. Here are some pictures of Hamide Soleimani Afshar. Here she was living the life in Los Angeles, walking out of an Air Maze Store. Here was Hamidi Soleimani in her. In her outfit. That is totally not allowed in Iran. If she walked down the street in Iran, she would have acid thrown on her face for wearing this. Enjoying all the perks of Western life. It is fairly incredible, by the way, how many relatives of terrorists legitimately just enjoy the west and come here and take advantage of it because we're morons. Here was. Here's a picture of a Sarai Nasadat Hosseini scantily clad as well. Again, I'm just gonna say that I don't think this outfit is Tehran appropriate. So while her relatives, while her uncle was murdering people who dress like this in Iran, who dare to dress like this in Iran, murdering them, she was out in LA enjoying her life in the West. Well, we should kick all these folks out of the country. They do not belong here. The fact that so many terrorist children and terrorist relatives and future terrorists are trained in the United States is a blot on our immigration system. As the President said, if you import the Third World, you become the Third World. And that's not going to happen to the United States of America as long as I'm president. By the way, there are six Iranian leaders children who are currently in US Universities. The daughter of Ali Larajani, who was the de facto Iranian leader until he was killed, is a medical doctor who taught at Emory in New York. Leila Khatami, the daughter of the former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, teaches math at Union College. Zahra Mohede Damad is a niece of Ali Larajani and works as a professor in the Department of Nuclear Plasma and Radiological Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. And Aysa Hashemi is an associate professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology in la. His mom is a former member of Parliament in Iran who worked as a spokesperson for the terrorists who held 52 diplomats hostage at the US embassy in Tehran during the 79 revolution. Yeah, we don't need any of these folks in the United States and we should never have admitted any of them unless they were willing to openly denounce all of the belief systems of their parents and relatives. We don't need them here. And good for the State Department for kicking them out. Now, meanwhile, everybody you know is very dyspeptic about the economy. I'm just going to point out that the US Economy did, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, at 178,000 jobs in March. That is well above expectations. The predicted gain of 60,000 was beat by almost 120,000 jobs. Unemployment declined from 4.4% to 4.3%. So if this is the economic hell being unleashed on the American people, I got to say I feel like we can survive it again. That is not to make light of people's personal financial situations. People are paying for more for gas. People have student. All of that's true. But by any sort of real metric, the idea that the United States is currently in some sort of economic hellhole is not true. So again, the stock market is going down during the war. It will go up again when the war is over. The gas prices are going up. They'll go down again when the war is over. The economy continues to chug along, and it's worth noting that okay, while I was out as well, worth talking a moment about the ouster of Pam Bondi I've been calling for Pam Bondi not to be the attorney General for quite a while. I think her complete botchery of the rollout of the Epstein files that alone was enough to get her booted as the AG and the sort of performative nonsense that she was constantly engaged in undermined the president's agenda. I'm glad to see that she is out. President Trump put out a statement that's very kind to her, said, we love Pam. She'll be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future. Deputy AG Todd Blanche will step in. That is right. Hilariously, Democrats are now pretending to be mad at this. Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who is the wife of Governor Gavin Newsom of California, is blaming the patriarchy for Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi, leaving not the fact that they were incompetent. The patriarchy.
- [60:05]
I
I'm not a fan of Pam Bondi nor Kristi Noem, but I need to call out that it's no surprise to me that the first two prominent people pushed out of this administration were women. Let me explain the conservative women that Trump hand picks who align themselves with an agenda that controls women, restricting our rights, limiting our autonomy, and pushing us back into this straight jacket of femininity that is only in service of men. There's a familiar pattern here. Women are brought in packaged mar A Lago style and lifted up as long as they commit to wholeheartedly serve the interests of the patriarch at the top.
- [60:42]
B
I mean, just ridiculous, but not a shock. She's coming to the defense of Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem really? Well, it is coming from the Same lady who says that she gives her boys dolls so as to sensitize them. Come on, Seriously. We're still doing this? We're still doing this? Really?
- [61:02]
I
I've given our boys dolls, even if they tear the head off, I've given them dolls to learn that care and caregiving is not just an activity that's reserved for women, but that it's also an activity that is a responsibility of men.
- [61:21]
B
I mean, also, by the way, that's not how you teach a boy to be a responsible parent. Don't give him a doll. That's stupid. That's incredibly stupid. I'm just telling you it's dumb, okay? As the father of two boys, that's an incredibly stupid way to approach teaching your kids to be. You know how you teach your kid to be a good, responsible parent. Be a good, responsible parent in front of them. That's how you teach a kid to be a good, responsible parent. I don't care how many dolls you give a boy. The boy will turn the doll into a gun or rip the head off. And that has nothing to do with whether the boy will eventually be a good and responsible parent. Be a good dad, and your boys will be good dads. Be a good mom, and there's a pretty good shot your kids will be good moms. That's it. That's the whole thing. But again, Democrats, totally disconnected from reality. Dallas Sonier, he is the founder of Bonfire Legend, and he's made a bunch of great movies, as we all know. Bone, Tomahawk and Brawl and cell block 99 dragged across concrete. And then, of course, Run, Hide, Fight. Well, today, Dallas is here to discuss controversy over our latest Daily Wire film that we are making with D. Dallas. Apparently, massive controversy has now broken out over the. Over the horrifying issue of Jonathan Majors being in an action movie. And then he fell down, and now the unions are mad and we don't really care very much. Dallas, thanks so much for joining the show. I appreciate it, buddy. Okay, so why don't you run us through the story? Because the media are treating it as though Jonathan Majors, as well as one of the other actors in the film, basically were blown up on set, have been eviscerated, are no longer alive, and then the unions are treating it as though this is some sort of union violation that led to all of this. Why don't you spell out what happened here?
- [62:59]
J
Sure. So, you know, we make big, bad movies, and they've got explosions and helicopters and all kinds of fun stuff. Tons of guns. We use you know, live blanks on set. Like, we make movies old school style, and every now and then something will go wrong and people, you know, are injured or they're mildly hurt or things like that. We have licensed armors on set, we have set medics. We have all of the precautions in place. And in this case, we were making a great movie and two of the actors fell through a window that was set up for a stunt on the next take. They were, you know, rehearsed many times, all the necessary precautions. Anyway, everything was fine. The actors continued to work throughout the day. They went to the hospital at the end of the day, got a couple of stitches. And you know what? We made an awesome movie. The funny thing is the unions decided that we were horrible, horrible people. And they tried to start picketing us and protesting, but they could only round up on a given day, about six, seven people. And so they just looked like the Titanic version of the Recorder soundtrack, you know, and they really embarrassed themselves. We finished the movie strong and you'll see it here in a few months on Daily Wire plus.
- [64:25]
B
So, Dallas, obviously the unions had been making trouble before all of this. The unions had been making trouble before any of this happened on set. Essentially. We've done union movies. We've also done non union movies. With you. You've done both. This was non union. But it is not as though every member of the cast and crew is not union affiliated, of course. And so it turns out that there was sort of an attempt to unionize that failed. And now they were using this basically as a bootstrap operation to try to generate outrage. Is that basically the story here?
- [64:56]
J
That's right. So I've been with my crew for 15, 20 movies now. They're super fans of Daily Wire. They love us. They love working together. They're a real family. Every now and then when we make a movie, of course, we have to bring in a few people that are new. Those people who aren't so familiar with our way of working and our way of doing business. They decided they wanted to go union and try to flip the crew. And my crew rejected them. And it pissed them off so much that all the union reps started descending upon set to try and turn the crew. And then they ultimately reverted to shaming and threatened threatening letters and things like that and demands and whatever. None of the safety concerns ever came up. This was all about money and power. And as I said in the article, we don't negotiate with communists.
- [65:47]
B
So. So, Dallas, you know, I'm not going to ask you to give away anything about the film because we don't want to give away anything about the film at this point. The film does kick absolute ass. It's going to be fantastic. It's going to blow people's minds. And again, this, it seems to me that this is just the latest attempt, particularly by a lot of folks in the entertainment media to, to fight us. And they've been doing this basically since you announced that Jonathan Majors was going to be in a film with us. They weren't upset that Jonathan Majors is making a comeback. They're upset that Jonathan Majors is making a comeback with us. Right. Hollywood would, would like to control everything sort of top down in centralized fashion. They're upset that we're operating outside of their system and successfully doing so and getting stars like Jonathan Majors to be in movies with us. And so this seems like more of the same. Same because as soon as we announced Jonathan Majors would work with us, all of the articles were about how terrible it was for Jonathan Majors to work with us, not for us to work with Jonathan Majors. And now it's more of the same. It's, you know, we must be some sort of rogue operation that can't keep our own people safe.
- [66:45]
J
Yeah. I mean, first of all, Jonathan Majors is a total star. Absolute movie star. He was going to win an Oscar for Magazine Dreams before Hollywood turned on him and canceled him. We, of course, were so proud to un cancel him and get him back in the saddle and on a movie set where he belongs. And he delivered in spades. He's just a true, true actor and movie star. And yes, the how dare you crew descended upon us. Hollywood is in literal free fall right now. And yet we're making movies. We're thriving, we're doing great. And they are so mad about that that they're just apoplectic. And they're like the girl in the Exorcist with their head spinning around. And so they're so jealous they're not invited to the party. So they came and tried to pick at us and they came and tried to shut us down and we just gave them a double barrel middle finger and kept making the movie. And you know what? The movie's incredible. We just wrapped over the weekend. I'm going to give, you know, I'm going to post a crew photo here. It's 100 of us totally in solidarity and the unions can go shove it.
- [67:52]
B
Well, that's Dallas Sonia. He is the independent film producer and founder of Bonfire Legend. We work with him to make our daily wire movies over here. And I gotta tell you, this upcoming year is going to blow your mind. The kind of stuff that we're going to put out here at Daily, like truly insane, crazy, crazy stuff. You, you should get excited now because it's going to be that good. Dallas, thanks so much for the time. Congrats on wrapping the film.
- [68:13]
J
Thank you for having me.
- [68:16]
B
Alrighty, folks, the show continues for our members right now, for real this time. We are going to be taking your questions. Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member. And if you're not a member, you should become one. And use code Shapiro at checkout to try two months free on all annual plans. Click the link in the description and join us.
- [68:45]
H
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