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Savings vary. So I was off for Passover for a couple of days and apparently the world is now ending. President Trump declared a ceasefire. The Iranians won. We're all going to be speaking Persian. The IRGC is going to be presiding over the entire Middle east they want. Or. Or alternatively, President Trump is doing something smart and people are deliberately misunderstanding that thing. Because here is the thing. President Trump's ceasefire is a win win. Either it's going to work or it's not going to work. And either way, America will end up winning because President Trump is going to solidify his legacy as the greatest foreign policy president in modern American history. Nothing less will suffice. It's the reason he's doing it. It's the reason he's doing it. President Trump also knows the increasingly unhinged members of podcasts to stand. Did you see how hard he smacked them on Truth Social? We'll get to that in a bit. Tucker Carlson and his advocacy for a weak America and a strong Russia and China and Iran. And Candace Owens and her bizarre Nazi nouveau rhetoric. And Alex Jones and his constant conspiracy laden, low IQ crap. Megan Kelly and her click chasing abandonment of all principle. They aren't just wrong, they're undermining what it would mean for America to actually be great again. This is the Ben Shapiro Show. America has to be strong. That's been President Trump's message the entire time he's been running for office. And it will be strong. It was Trump's message in 2016. It was his message in 2020. It was his message in 2024. It was his. It is his message today. And that's what his legacy will have to be if he's to have any legacy at all. A stronger America, period. That's what Americans want. A revitalized vision of America as the global leader, the strongest power on earth. Which means two things. One, America as the free leader of the world, Robust free speech, a strong social fabric, a booming economy filled with innovation. And second, the leader of the free world, a dominant military power capable of deterring threats and ensuring freedom of trade and American security and the security of our allies across the planet. That's the vision. That's what America ought to look like. This is what conservatives have always thought. That's what we think today. That's what President Trump's enemies on the right now oppose. They want a weaker America. They're posing as America first. What they actually are is America toast. And they say it openly. They say all the time things like they want America to retreat from the world. We're already too weak. We're bloated and we're falling apart. And that the best American future actually looks like France declining, pathetic, amoral, addicted to welfare programs, importing mass labor from third world countries, thanks to a ridiculously flabby welfare state, a social fabric that is no longer workable. These are the people who seem to think that the best global future looks like a future where China and Russia run two thirds of the planet. I mean, that's the only reason you end up running propaganda for all the worst regimes on the planet while proclaiming the Baghdad Bob like Baghdad Bob, that America is losing or playing a fresh version of Jane Fonda standing with the Vietcong. Again, this isn't about people asking honest questions about what President Trump is doing. There are all sorts of questions that can be asked about about what President Trump is doing. And all those questions deserve Answers. It is about people who are actively rooting for America to lose and openly say so. And openly, openly say so. Okay, so let's start with this. Iran has been deeply wounded. Over the course of the last several weeks, Iran has been brought low. This notion that Iran is bestriding the Middle east like a colossus because they have the capacity to fire some drones at shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is asinine. It's asinine doesn't mean it's not a problem. It is a problem. But this bizarre notion that Iran somehow is the big victor here is crazy towns. It's crazy towns and it's propagandistic nonsense. Let's start with how much damage we've actually done to Iran at this point. Here is the CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper giving an update yesterday. Hi, I'm Admiral Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. central Command. Less than six weeks ago, more than 50,000 of America's sons and daughters in uniform launched Operation Epic Fury and embarked on a mission of profound consequence. We set out to dismantle the Iranian regime's ability to project power beyond its own borders. And we clearly accomplished this task. Iran has suffered a generational military defeat. The United States and Israel systematically destroyed Iran's ability to conduct large scale military operations for years to come. And that of course is right. General Dan Raisin Cain described the extent of the Iranian defeat yesterday. Since the beginning of major combat operations, the United States Joint forces struck more than 13,000 targets, including in that 13,000, more than 4,000 dynamic targets that popped up on the battlefield and were immediately addressed. Thanks to the exceptional combat command and control system and intelligence acumen and agility of our joint force, CENTCOM forces destroyed approximately 80% of Iran's air defense systems, striking more than 1500 air defense targets, more than 450 ballistic missile storage facilities, 800 one way attack drones storage facilities. All of these systems are gone. We've devastated Iran's command and control and logistical networks to destroying more than 2,000 command and control nodes and degrading their ability to target U.S. and friendly forces. So you may recall that I have been saying for weeks that no matter how the war ended, Iran had been significantly crippled. Like truly crippled, truly hurt. Okay, that's been my going theory for a while here because it happens to be the truth. And all this talk about how Iran barely surviving, which is what is going on right now, basically them having to exert pressure on the Strait of Hormuz, that is not, by the way, a sign of Iranian strength that's a sign of Iranian weakness. They could have done this crap any time over the past 20 years. The reason they didn't do it is because they understood it was basically the last gasp of a dying regime. The reason that you try to seize global trading and alienate all the Gulf allies and by the way, also China, which receives oil from the Strait of Hormuz, is because you are weak, not because you are strong. It is a last gasp attempt to grab some sort of leverage. That is what that is. Okay, so this raises the question of President Trump's ceasefire. So as you recall is right before Passover, for me, the last couple of days of Passover and literally right before Passover, it came in, the President announced a ceasefire. So he put out a statement on Truth Social where he said, based on conversations with Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif and Field Marshal Asin Munir of Pakistan and wherein they requested that I hold off the destruction force being sent tonight to Iran. And subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the complete, immediate and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz, I agreed to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double sided cease fire. The reason for doing so is that we have already met and exceeded our military objectives and are very far along with a definitive agreement concerning long form peace with Iran and peace in the Middle east. We received a 10 point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran. But a two week period will allow the agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the United States of America, as President and also representing the countries of the Middle east, it is an honor to have this long form problem close to resolution. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Okay, so let's say that that were all true and that what the President had been assured by his negotiator, who it appears was the vice president, J.D. vance, on this particular matter. So you'll have to take it up with him if the President got the wrong story. If what the President says is true, Iran had agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and outstanding issues, which of course include nuclear development, were basically being negotiated. In just a moment, we'll get to Iran's response to the declared ceasefire. First, here's the thing. If you own a business, you probably have no idea how many brokers it actually takes to insure it. That is a huge problem you have policies scattered everywhere, applications that keep asking for the same information. No real picture of how it all fits together when something goes wrong. We have a sponsor called Super Sure. It is built to blow all of that up. It is one brokerage for your business coverage with a licensed super agent and account team that actually works your account year round, not just at renewal. 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On over to super sure.com Shapiro that's super sure.com Shapiro paid for by Super Sure Insurance Agency LLC, a licensed insurance agency. So the Iranians put out their own statement. This was the Foreign Minister, Abbas Araki. He said, on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran, I express gratitude and appreciation for my dear brothers in Pakistan. In response to the brotherly request of Prime Minister Sharifc in his tweet, and considering the request by the United States for negotiation based on its 15 point proposal, as well as announcements by the President about acceptance of the general framework of Iran's 10 point proposal as a basis for negotiation, I hereby declare on behalf of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, if attacks against Iran are halted, our powerful armed forces will cease their defensive operations. The propaganda from these people, my goodness. For a period of two weeks, safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible via coordination with Iran's armed forces and with the consideration of technical limitations. Okay, so what you read from him is basically confirmation of what Trump said, right? That the Strait of Hormuz is going to open and also that they were considering the 15 point proposal the United States had put forward. Now you have to understand, the original 10 point proposal put forward by Iran is total trash. It was never going anywhere. It, it Included America abandoning all bases in the Middle East. It included the United States paying reparations for the damage in the war. It included full scale nuclear development by Iran and full scale ballistic missile development by Iran. So it wasn't a basis for negotiation. It was a dream list. It was a secret diary list from the Iranians. Trump was never going to say okay to that. So the reaction to the markets is precisely what you think that it would be. The price of a barrel of Brent crude had spiked into the 115 range prior to, to the President's announcement of the, of the cease fire. And then it dived below 100 again immediately upon the announcement of the cease fire. That's WTI Crude oil. Actually, Brent crude plunged as well. None of this being a gigantic shock. Wednesday morning, the President put forward another statement on Truth Social where he said the United States will work closely with Iran, which we have determined has gone through what will be a very productive regime change. Again, it is totally unclear who he's talking to at this point. I mean, it's, it is regime change in the sense that the same people aren't talking to you. But if they are the same people's deputies who are saying the same things, it's not full regime change. So he says there will be no enrichment of uranium. Again, that's the red line. The United States will, working with Iran, dig up and remove all of the deeply buried nuclear dust. It is now and has been under very exacting satellite surveillance. Nothing has been touched from the date of attack. We are and will be talking tariff and sanctions relief with Iran. Many of the 15 points have already been agreed to. 15. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Okay, so if again, the President received from Iran an actual deal in which the nuclear program goes bye bye and the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, that is the end of the conflict. That, that's been the President's case for a long time here, okay? Because we have degraded their ballistic missile facilities. We have killed all the heads of the irgc. We killed the Ayatollah. His son Mashtab Al Khamenei is missing a leg and is in a coma because their air force is gone, their navy is gone, their military has been heavily bombarded. Okay? So that's why you end up with the ceasefire. So when I say that this is a win win, here is what I mean. There are a few good reasons why you do the ceasefire. First of all, you show goodwill that if the strait were to reopen and Iran were to negotiate an end to its nuclear program, that that would be the end of the war. Which is what Trump has said literally from the beginning. This is why it's hilarious, all these people saying, well, his goal is regime change. He never said it was regime change. In fact, he overtly kept saying it wasn't regime change, it was regime change behavior, that the behavior should change. So either they're going to prove it or they're not going to prove it. And that's why it's a two week cease fire and not just an end to the war, because you still have to negotiate whether that is true or not. Also, this is a signal to China, okay? That's the second reason to do a ceasefire like this. Let's be clear about this negotiation. Pakistan is a cutout for China. Pakistan is basically a Chinese proxy at this point, period. China was begging the United States to stop here because China has been deprived of some 37% of the oil that is coming through the Strait of Hormuz. They are the largest single recipient of all oil from the strait of Hormuz. 33% of all of their oil imports come directly from the Strait of Hormuz. Iran is choking that off. China's not getting its oil right now, which harms China significantly more than it harms the United States. So the United States, as a goodwill gesture to China, is offering Iran a path out. Now, if Iran doesn't show the goodwill to take it, what is China going to do? Is China going to be super happy with the Iranians for continuing to choke off the Strait of Hormuz as their only methodology for attaining power? Because, again, they don't have a fully functional nuclear program. It seems as though the Iranian government is trying to turn itself into a hermit state like North Korea. Basically, they're saying, okay, we have no economy, okay, our country's trashed, but we will hang on to power by exerting leverage. They don't have a nuclear weapon the way that North Korea does. That's the thing we've been trying to stop. Because if they got a nuclear weapon, not only would they hand it off to their terror proxies, they would also threaten everybody with it. Right now, they're using the Strait of Hormuz to threaten everybody. The reason they won't give up control of the Strait is because they have no leverage. If they give up control of the strait again, this could all be over tomorrow. If they give up their nukes and control of the strait, the question is whether they're going to do that. Trump is offering them an offer amp to do that. Maybe they'll take it all. Likelihood they won't. Also, by the way, this does allow for military replenishment. We've been flying continuous sorties for a month, so it's not a terrible time to do maintenance and repair and some planning for whatever the next step is going to be if in fact in negotiations go sideways. So the people who are all over Trump here who believe that he's just going to give up the ghost, that he's going to leave without achieving some status change in Iran's nuclear approach, or that the control of the straits is going to be left completely to the behest of the Iranians, it beggars imagination. It doesn't make any sense because it cuts directly against the purpose of President Trump doing this, which is a stronger America. There would be knock on effects if, if Iran were able to just maintain complete control over the strait and no deal took place and the US Just walked away. Yes, it would be greatly weakened, but it would send some pretty bad messages. Like, for example, that any country could talk the United States into abandoning core national interests over shutting down serious trade routes. China might take notice of that, for example, because the Taiwan Strait, which, you know, like, it's called the Taiwan Strait because it passes right by Taiwan, it carries 20% of all global maritime trade. It carries something like 90% of the world's largest ships by tonnage. So if China takes away the lesson that shutting off a trade corridor is leverage against the United States, sufficient to deter us from our core national interests, that's a problem. It would also mean, because China's way stronger than Iran, that any country with a few drones and ballistic missiles and some geographic proximity to a choke point could wave off the most powerful force on planet Earth. And it would be very bad for President Trump's legacy because again, two years from now, three years from now, Iran could theoretically rebuild and then claim real victory over President Trump. Unless, again, unless the reality here is that either way this goes, no matter what happens here, the Iranian government has already been hit so hard that they are going to fall apart anyway. Which, by the way, is certainly possible. They are a wounded animal that's had one leg removed, not unlike the new Ayatollah Khomeini. They are crawling away into the woods. They may survive. The question is for how long? Because they are still bleeding, because their infrastructure no longer exists. In the same way, because all of their ballistic missile facilities have been destroyed, because their steel mills have been destroyed, because their, their gas fields in South Pars were hit because their chemical factories were hit, because everything was hit. So that's where things currently stand. This is why people who are saying, oh, catastrophe, end of the world. No, not exactly. Hey, now, is the ceasefire actually going to last? The reason that Iran is in serious trouble here is because either way this goes, they got a problem. The reason Iran is hesitant to give up control over the Strait of Hormuz now is because this is now their only leverage point. What they realized in this, they thought they had three possible leverage points here. One, their terrorist proxies. They could activate their terrorist proxies and it would drive everybody off the ball. Two, that they could directly fire at energy facilities in Saudi and UAE and Bahrain and all of those countries would pressure the United States into stopping. And three, the Strait of Hormuz. Those were their three real capacities to harm the globe and their enemies. Two of those have been completely wiped off the map. Their terrorist proxies are not going to deter anybody. And their strikes on Kuwait, Bahrain, uae, Saudi have driven the Gulf states, our Gulf allies, into alliance with Israel, not into weakness vis a vis Iran. So that left them with one choke point and one choke point only, and that's the Strait of Hormuz. If they give that up, then basically they become a hermit state without even a nuclear weapon. And then they are unbelievably vulnerable internally. And don't pay attention to all the reporting suggesting that there is nothing roiling under the surface in Iran. Again, there were millions of people in the streets before this war. What do you think is going to happen when all of this is over? You, everybody's just going to go back to sleep? When the IRGC is in the weakest position it has likely ever been, when the Iranian army, the Artash and the, and the IRGC are not exactly on the same page. The irgc, by the way, again, they're doing thing that a, that a last gasp regime does. Right now. They're declaring dead people, their leaders. Moshtabah Khomeini is not the actual leader of Iran. Moshtaba Khomeini is in a coma and they declared him the leader and they are tweeting under his name right now. Again, none of this is the mark of a powerful regime. All of this is a mark of a regime that is on its last leg. Not last legs, last leg. In just a moment, we're about to get to Iran trying to back out of a deal that it kind of made, didn't make. We'll get into all of it first, you spend roughly a third of your life sleeping, meaning on your mattress. That is a gigantic chunk of your existence where your body is either recovering or falling apart. And if you are sleeping on a saggy generic mattress, well, you're not doing well. Helix will build a mattress for you. You take a quick sleep quiz. It matches you to one of their many models based on how you sleep, your body type, whether your spouse thrashes around at night, they deliver it right to your door free in the US in a box you can actually move. 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Again, this has been sort of the reason why President Trump is pissed off at Podcastistan is because they are buying into every piece of regime propaganda from the Iranians they possibly can, and they have been for weeks. They've been buying into Russian propaganda and Iranian propaganda and they've been mirroring all of it. And this is why they say dumb things like the President was leveraged into this by the Israeli. The Israelis are yanking the chain. Okay, if the Israelis were yanking the chains, you think the ceasefire would happen in the first place? The Israelis are not particularly happy with the ceasefire. The President declared that because he wanted to declare it in the same way the President declared the war in Gaza over because he wanted to declare the war in Gaza over. The President is the one holding the end of every chain. That is the way it works in geopolitics when you run the world's most powerful military. So Iran decided to basically run an op as to why they were not going to reopen the Strait. Again, the problem for Iran is if they reopen the strait, then they're going to have to concede. If they concede, then they are very weak. And if they're very weak, they might fall. So they continue to grip that straight the same way that Bill Clinton grips an intern's. But I mean, like, that is they must control the strait. It is the only way. So they're looking for an excuse and a way to blame Israel for continuing to maintain control of the strait. So what they did is they decided they were going to blame Israel, of course, for maintaining control of the strait. So let's start with this. Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy. Hezbollah has launched 6,400 rockets against Israel over the course of the last month. Hezbollah has been greatly damaged since 2024. That is when the Israelis did the famous Beeper operation, Operation Grim Beeper, where they took out a bunch of Hezbollah people and then they did an invasion of southern Lebanon, and they cleared a lot of that territory. Well, since then, Hezbollah has been attempting to reconstitute. And so Hezbollah started firing in solidarity with Iran, because they are an Iranian proxy terror group. They started firing rockets over the border into northern Israel by the thousands. By the thousands. And so Israel decided they'd had enough and they walked over the border and they bombed the living hell out of southern Lebanon and they moved all the population that is not Christian, by the way, up past the Litany river, which is about 100 km into the country. And then because Hezbollah had increased its launches, Israel decided that it was going to just end Hezbollah entirely. They decided that they were going to just bomb the living hell out of them. Over the course of Wednesday and Thursday, there are also rumors that Hezbollah was going to attempt some sort of action against the very weak Lebanese government to try and create another pressure point for Iran on behalf of Iran. So Israel goes in, they hit the Iranian terrorist group Hezbollah extremely hard. So Iran immediately claims that the ceasefire was violated, which is weird, because nothing in the ceasefire had to do with Israel and Lebanon, which is quite far away. It turns out that Lebanon is a separate country from Iran. And if the idea is that any ceasefire with Iran means that Israel can no longer defend itself against terrorist groups, that is not a ceasefire that Israel would have ever agreed to or that the United States ever should agree to, because that's stupid. It would mean that by grabbing the Strait of Hormuz, Iran could create the basis for terror attacks all across the region, by the way, not just on Israel. Over the course of the ceasefire, Saudi's Pipeline. They had a major pipeline that was actually hit, that Saudi pipeline. Now originally they thought that it was hit by the Iranians. It turns out it was hit by an Iranian proxy group in Iraq. Okay, same difference. So what Iran is doing is they're now attempting to reflex that terrorist muscle. Right. Remember I said three points of leverage. Terrorist groups directs attack, direct attacks on America's allies and energy resources in the region. And Strait of Hormuz. So they already lost two. Right. It didn't actually drive the Gulf allies into weakness with the Iranians and the terror groups. The proxy terror groups are very weak. They're trying to reconstitute that now. They're trying to rebuild something. Okay, so Iran immediately claimed that there is a violation of the ceasefire in some way. They put out a message on Wednesday afternoon suggesting that there was a non compliance with the first clause of the 10 point proposal regarding the ceasefire in Lebanon. Okay. And the United States immediately came out and they were like, no, actually that is, that is not how any of this works. We never agreed, the United States never agreed that Iran got to basically activate terror groups across the region without any consequence because there's a ceasefire over the Strait of Hormuz. Here's Caroline Levitt at the White House denying this.
