Donald Trump (6:59)

Getting a lot of reports. They've been meeting for many hours, as you probably have noticed. We'll see what happens. Look, regardless, we win. Regardless what happens, we win. We totally defeated that country. And so let's see what happens. Maybe they make a deal, maybe they don't. From the standpoint of America, we win.

Ben Shapiro (7:23)

Okay? And again, he is not wrong about this. We should keep focusing on the fact that Iran's military has been wildly depleted. Their navy is at the bottom of the sea. Their air force cannot fly. Their government is so discombobulated that you have factions within the Iranian government legitimately arguing with each other fairly publicly. You have Mohammed Khaliba, who is the negotiator for the Iranians and the person who I suppose is, is who we are talking to. And he's arguing with Vahidi, who's the head of the irgc, fairly openly at this point. So there's serious conflict even within the Iranian government as to who exactly is in the leadership. It's not Mojtaba Khamenei who is one legged and in a coma. So things are not going well for Iran. Not only that, it turns out that actually as the world reorients away from oil in the Persian Gulf, they're reorienting in the immediate term toward the United States and by the way, globally, they're going to reorient away from transiting the Strait of Hormuz. You're going to see new pipelines being built from Saudi probably all the way across to the Mediterranean Sea, possibly via Israel. You're going to see new pipelines that are built in other directions in an attempt to avoid the overwatch of the Iranians. But for the moment, the reality is that we are shipping a bushel of oil to the United States. The President put out a statement. Again, this was Saturday morning, quote, massive numbers of completely empty oil tankers, some of the largest anywhere in the world, are heading right now to the United States to load up with the best and sweetest oil and gas anywhere in the world. We have more oil than the next two largest oil economies combined in higher quality. We're waiting for you. Quick turnaround, President Trump. And here, in case you don't believe him, this is a map of tankers headed to the Gulf of America. And as you can See, that is a lot of tankers that are no longer going to the Persian Gulf. Instead, they are headed toward, you guessed it, the Gulf of America, formerly known as the Gulf of Mexico. So Iran is in a bit of trouble already. Coming up, we'll get to why the blockade on Iran is actually going to affect China in some pretty negative ways. You know, first, I've been working with PureTalk for six years. I wanted to work with a wireless company that actually shares my values. PureTalk is veteran led, so helping veterans is huge to them. I think that's great. They've donated over half a million dollars to America's Warrior Partnership. It's a fantastic organization that's on the front lines of preventing veteran suicide. And PureTalk is creating 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 PeerTalk's service. They give you the same towers, the same Network, the same 5G coverage as one of the big guys, but for a fraction of the price. Again, the service is great, the customer service is great, and there are people who don't hate your guts. I choose to do business with a company that shares my values, supporting veterans every single day, creating American jobs. How about you go to PureTalk.com Shapiro to switch to PureTalk. That's PureTalk.com Shapiro to switch to my wireless company and America's wireless company, PureTalk. Go check them out right now. PureTalk.com Shapiro that's PureTalk.com Shapiro. So, number one, it turns out that Iran may have planted mines and then may have just lost control of the mines. Like, they may not even know where they planted mines in the Strait of Hormuz. That's the New York Times reporting it, quote, Iran's inability to locate its own mines is one reason Iran has not been able to quickly comply with the Trump administration's admonitions to let more traffic pass through the strait. Safe routes are limited in large part because Iran mined the strait haphazardly. It's not even clear that Iran recorded where it put every mine. And even when they recorded the location, they sort of let them drift or move. Well, this is a problem, not really for the United States. It is a problem for China. It is a problem for Japan. It is a problem for Europe, truly, because if the Straits of Hormuz were to be, let us say, permanently closed or harmed, the chief problem would lie with the people who get their oil from the Strait of Hormuz. That is not the United States, that is jet fuel in Europe. That is most of the oil that is going into places like Japan and China from that region. And so how long is China going to simply allow Iran to hold the world hostage while it can't even get its own oil? If it turns out that Iran is able to control that area, that is not a good thing for China, that is a bad thing for China. And this I think is part of the President's plan as we'll get to in a little while. China has been attempting to prop up the Iranian regime because they see Iran as a counterweight to Saudi, to uae, to Bahrain and to Israel. They believe that Iran is the glue that sticks together their world coalition along with Russia. And so they have continued, according to the Wall Street Journal, to sell the Iranians sanctioned dual use technology to enable Tehran to keep building weapons. But what happens when right now, the way that it was working is that oil that was moving via the Persian Gulf was largely going to China and Iran was letting it through and so was the United States. What happens when that oil stops moving and now China has a serious fuel problem? Well, as of Saturday morning, the President put out another statement saying they were already clearing out the Strait of Hormuz. He put out a statement, quote, the fake news media has lost total credibility. Not that they had any to begin with because of their massive Trump derangement syndrome, sometimes referred to as tds. They love saying that Iran is winning when in fact everyone knows they're losing and losing big. Their navy is gone, the air force is gone, their anti aircraft apparatus is non existent, radar is dead. Their missile and drone factories have been largely obliterated along with the missiles and drones themselves. And most importantly, their longtime leaders are no longer with us, praise be to Allah. The only thing they have going is the threat that a ship may bump into one of their sea mines, which by the way, all 28 of their mine dropper boats are also lying at the bottom of the sea. We're now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to countries all over the world, including China, Japan, South Korea, France, Germany and many others. Incredibly, they don't have the courage or will to do this work themselves. Very interestingly, empty oil carrying ships from many nations are headed to the United States to load up with oil. And the President again is not wrong about this. Meanwhile, it turns out that on Saturday, actually two American ships transited the Strait of Hormuz and are operating in the Arabian Gulf. Those would be the USS Frank E. Peterson and the USS Michael Murphy. According to Admiral Brad Cooper, who's the commander of centcom, quote, today we began the process of establishing a new passage and we will share this safe pathway with the maritime industry soon to encourage the free flow of commerce. Additional US forces, including underwater drones will join the clearance effort in the coming days. The President did make clear that if we're the ones who are going to do the. This is not the little red hen. If we're the ones who do the work, then we are the ones who are going to reap the benefit. Other countries can't just free ride on us.

Donald Trump (14:06)

We defeated their navy, we defeated their air force, we defeated their anti aircraft, we defeated their radar, we defeated their leaders. Their leaders are all dead. And now all we do is we'll open up the strait even though we don't use it. Because we have a lot of other countries in the world that do use it that are either afraid or weak or cheap. I don't know what it is, but we were not helped by NATO. That I can tell you.

Ben Shapiro (14:36)

Again, this we'll get to in a minute. The international community's failure to actually be a community and instead to just sit there and let America do all of the heavy lifting. All right, so all this was happening while negotiations were supposedly taking place. And those negotiations went for something like 21 hours straight and they ended with nothing. This of course is not a surprise to those of us who have been pointing out that Iran was going to be in transigence on its nuclear weaponry. It was not possible for the Iranians to give up their nuclear program. The minute that they do, their leverage is gone again. They're trying to turn themselves into North Korea. Remember, never forget when it comes to the Iranians, they could end all measures against them with one statement. All they would have to do is announce they are done developing nuclear weapons and they're gonna give up the nuclear materials they have. They are not going to block the Strait of Hormuz, they're not going to develop offensive ballistic missile capacity and they're going to stop funding terrorist group. That's it. If they did all of that, all of this would be over. And in fact it would have been over decades ago. The reason they're not doing that is because they do have regional and global ambitions. That is the reason they are doing this. And so they're not giving up the ghost. Well, the vice president, J.D. vance, who no one could accuse of being A neocon warmonger. He was the one leading the negotiations. And even he had to say, listen, the Iranians are not willing to make any sort of serious concession in terms of acting like a normal state.

J.D. Vance (16:03)

But the simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon. And, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon. That is the core goal of the President of the United States. And that's what we've tried to achieve through these negotiations. Again, their nuclear program, such as it is, the enrichment facilities that they've, that they had before, they've been destroyed. But the simple question is, do we see a fundamental commitment of will for the Iranians not to develop a nuclear weapon? Not just now, not just two years from now, but for the long term? We haven't seen that yet. We hope that we will.

Ben Shapiro (16:42)

Now, again, the chances that we will absent significantly more coercion, low. What exactly was it that the United States wanted from Iran? Again, the list of demands is just be normal. That's it. One, an end to all uranium enrichment. This is according to Fox. Two, dismantling all major nuclear facilities. Three, retrieving highly enriched uranium. Four, accepting broader regional peace and de escalation framework, including regional allies. Five, stop funding proxy groups including Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis. And six, fully open the Strait of Hormuz. That's it. Act like a normal country and all of this stops. And they won't. And they won't. Mary Margaret Olihan has a good piece over at Daily Wire reporting on what exactly the United States learned in these negotiations. Quote, the negotiations helped the United States understand just how little Iran understood their situation, US Officials told the Daily Wire. A US Official said that Vance entered the negotiations well aware the US And Iran had hardly interacted with one another for half a century. Vance probed the Iranian assessment of their own position and discovered that they fundamentally misunderstood their own position walking into the negotiations. That was why the Vice President left Islamabad after he gave that final offer. If the Iranians believe they have leverage that they do not have, the official said, no deal is achievable. And that's the thing Iranians, you can only close the straight once. Once it's been closed, it's closed. So what exactly do you do next? If you are Iran, you simply presumably hope to wait out the United States. That's it. Well, President Trump then issued a statement that followed hard upon JD Vance's statement Saturday night. Quote, Iran promised to open the Strait of Hormuz, and they knowingly failed to do so. This caused anxiety, dislocation and pains many people in countries throughout the world. They say they put mines in the water even though all their navy and most of their mine droppers have been completely blown up. They may have done so, but what ship owner would want to take the chance? There's great dishonor and permanent harm to the reputation of Iran and what's left of their leaders. But we are beyond all of that. As they promised, they better begin the process of getting this international waterway open and fast. Every law in the book is being violated by them. I've been fully debriefed, says the President, By Vice President J.D. vance, Special Envoy Steve Woodkoff and Jared Kushner on the meeting that took place in Islamabad through the kind and very competent leadership of Field Marshal Asim Munir and Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif of Pakistan. Again, understand that Pakistan in this particular situation is a cutout for China. Pakistan and China have a very warm relationship. China is the one trying to get to an off ramp here because it is China that is worried about the Strait of Hormuz being closed. Considering that 37% of imported Chinese oil comes via the Strait of Hormuz, according to the President, I always appreciate hearing that the amount of humanity that he has saved. He's talking about the war with India is incomprehensible. Then he says the meeting with Iran began early in the morning and lasted throughout the night, close to 20 hours. I could go into great detail and talk about much that has been gotten, but there is only one thing that matters. Iran is unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions. In many ways, the points that were agreed to are better than us continuing our military operations to conclusion. But all of those points don't matter compared to allowing nuclear power to be in the hands of such volatile, difficult, unpredictable people. My three representatives, as all of this time went by, became, not surprisingly, very friendly and respectful of Iran's representatives. Who? Mohammed Bagar, Khaliba, Abbas Arahi and Ali Bagheri. But that doesn't matter because they were very unyielding as to the single most important issue. And as I've always said right from the beginning and many years ago, Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. And that, in the end, is the thing that matters. Okay, so the President then said, what would happen next? Quote, effective immediately, the United States Navy, the finest in the world, will begin the process of blockading any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz. And at some point we will reach an all being allowed to go in, all being allowed to go out basis. But Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying there may be a mine out there somewhere that nobody knows about. But then this is world extortion and leaders of countries, especially the United States, will never be extorted. I've also instructed our navy to seek and interdict every vessel in international waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas, says the President. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the straits. Any Iranian who fires at us will or a peaceful vessels will be blown to hell. Iran knows has the President better than anyone how to end the situation which has already devastated their country. The blockade will begin shortly. Other countries will be involved with this blockade. Iran will not be allowed to profit off this illegal act of extortion. They want money and more importantly, they want nuclear. Additionally, and at an appropriate moment, we are fully locked and loaded and our military will finish up the little that is left of Iran. President Trump and that blockade was commenced this morning at 10am Eastern. It was effective on vessels attempting to reach Iranian ports or that were leaving Iranian ports. The President also pointed out on Truth Social this morning that the United States would be obliterating any fast attack ships. These are the small boats that Iran has been launching at tankers. He says if they come anywhere close to our blockade, they will be immediately eliminated. Now again, what does this mean? Well, it really means that the Iranian economy is dead like doa. The Iranian economy was already basically screwed. They had continued to benefit economically from the blockade because as the supply of oil was lowered, as they blockaded pretty much all non Iranian ships or Iranian flagships or Iranian allied ships, the supply of global oil declined and the price of Brent crude skyrocketed. And so Iran was shipping out more oil at higher prices. And so the United States just said under President Trump, you don't get to do that anymore. You're gonna blockade pretty much everything except your own stuff. Well, now we are going to blockade your stuff and you're gonna have to deal with the fallout. Well, Miyad Maleki of the foundation for Defense of Democracy points out what that means in terms of Iran's economy. And the answer is it means they have no economy. Quote, the US Naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would cost Iran approximately $276 million a day in lost exports and disrupt $160 million a day in imports a combined economic damage of $435 million a day, or $13 billion per month. Over 90% of Iran's $110 billion in annual trade transits the Persian Gulf. Oil and gas accounts for 80% of government export earnings and 24% of GDP. Harg island alone generates $53 billion a year, or $78 billion a year in energy revenue. The rial has already cratered from 42,000 to 1.5 million per dollar. Banks are currently limiting withdrawals in Iran to 18 to $30 per day. The overall inflation rate is 47.5%. And a blockade eliminating all foreign exchange earnings pushes the rial into terminal hyperinflation. The regime just issued its largest ever banknote. 10 million riyals. That sounds like a lot of money. 10 million riyals. That is $7. $7. So the blockade basically ends the Iranian economy. Now, the Iranians presumably are hoping that this only lasts for a short period of time, but the New York Post is reporting this morning that the Iranians are already talking about the possibility of giving up the ghost and ending their nuclear program. This is exactly what President Trump predicted yesterday with Maria Bartiromo over on Fox.

Donald Trump (23:43)

Think of it. They're allowed to say, death to America, Death to this death. Know I make one statement, they say, oh, such a big deal. Let me tell you, that statement got them to the bargaining table and they haven't left. They haven't left the bargaining table. I predict they come back and they give us everything we want. And I tell my people, I want everything. I don't want 90%. I don't want 95%. I told them I want everything.

Ben Shapiro (24:09)

Well, and what?

Donald Trump (24:10)

They have no cards? Maria. Maria. Yep, they have no cards.

Ben Shapiro (24:16)

Okay, so does that sound like taco ing to you? This was the President giving Iran the opportunity to take the off ramp. And if Iran chose not to take the off ramp, well, hell was coming. That is the reality. The United States had a week to rearm the amount of material that's being re shipped back into the Middle east in preparation for even further action is quite large at this point. And the United States still has a lot of cards left to play. Sure, we can embargo all of the oil that is coming out of Iran. We can blockade it. We could also just blow up Kharg island and create a permanent problem for them. The Israelis could do a special operation and grab the nuclear materials right now. And as the economy collapses, if you believe that there won't be bread riots, meaning people Just don't have any money at all in Iran and they don't have a choice but to try to overthrow the government and restore normality. Well, that is a thing that is happening too. Iran is in very, very serious trouble. Coming up, we'll get to where Americans are on this war. You keep hearing that Americans hate it. It's just that's not the truth. First, when you're hiring, it's not just about qualifications on paper makes a gigantic difference hiring the right people. This is exactly why you should use our sponsor, ZipRecruiter. If you're hiring, you want a candidate that's passionate about your role. But you can't get that insight from a resume unless you post your job on ZipRecruiter. And now you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com DailyWire ZipRecruiter's matching technology is seriously impressive. It doesn't just throw resumes at you. It finds qualified candidates fast. And now they've rolled out a new feature that actually prioritizes the most interested, most qualified people first. So you get to the right hires without wasting time. Candidates can tell you directly, yes, in their own words why they want the job. It's efficient, it's personal. It's one of the reasons that ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site according to G2. Find candidates who really want your job on Zip Recruiter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter will get a quality candidate within the very first day. Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com DailyWire that ZipRecruiter.com Dailywire meet your match on ZipRecruiter. Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com Daily Wire this raises the only possibility Iran has left, and that is convince members of the grievance party that if they complain loud enough, the President will stop. So, first of all, the American people, there are a lot of polls out there saying the American people, they don't love the Iran war. That's a minority like it or a plurality like it. Okay, here's the reality. Always and forever, Americans don't like wars until we win them. That's all. And even the wars that we do like at the very beginning, if we start to lose them, Americans don't like them anymore. Americans like winning and we don't like losing. It is that simple. And Americans are willing to undergo this for a temporary period of time. As they've said over and over and over, the polls that say, do you like the war right now? No one likes the war right now. No one's like, yes, war. The question is, what do we get in exchange for not doing what we're doing? And the answer is a nuclear Iran with its foot on the throat of global oil supply. Well, that's unacceptable. Every poll shows that a short term, a short duration war that achieves our goals is popular with the American people. And a long term war that doesn't achieve any of our goals is wildly unpopular because, duh. Well, Representative Mike Turner of Ohio, he made this point pretty clearly. He says, listen, does anyone like higher gas prices? No. But are we willing to trade slightly lower gas prices for Iran becoming a nuclear power and being able to sit on the Straits of Hormuz permanently? Nope. The President has articulated, I think, very well that this is about ensuring that Iran does not become a nuclear state and no one is willing to trade lower gas prices for Iran becoming a nuclear state. Okay. And again, when people are asked what America's goals in Iran should be, the answer is basically universal. This is a CBS News YouGov poll that came out over the weekend. What is important for the United States to do regarding Iran? 87% open the Strait of Hormuz and oil access. 81% make sure Iran's people are safe and free. 76% stop Iran from threatening other countries. 76% permanently stop Iran's nuclear programs. So 3/4 of Americans agree with pretty much all the goals that have ever been spelled out regarding Iran. The question, of course, with every war is cost and benefit. That's all. And the reason that people are experiencing heartburn is because they don't know whether the President has a clear plan. But the notion that Republicans in particular are abandoning the President continues to be a lie and a stupidity. That Same poll shows 81% of Republicans believe the President has a clear plan. Only 19% believe he does not have a clear plan. Okay, so meanwhile, again, you have members of the grievance party who refuse to understand all of this. Refuse. And who spend all of their time trying to trot out the propaganda of our enemies. Tucker Carlson did this on the BBC yesterday. He explained that President Trump is actually a slave to the Israelis. A slave. The President of the United States is a slave, which is psychotic. It's crazy. And the President has multiple times told the Israelis not to do things, like, a lot. You'll recall that last year during the 12 Day War, the Iranians fired some missiles. At the very end of the 12 Day War, Israel had planes in the air to retaliate. And the President called them up and told them no. One of the reasons that Israel ramped down action in Lebanon over the course of the last couple of days is, is because the President told them that he wanted them to stop so he could pursue negotiations. It was the President's deal to end the war in Gaza, and there are certain provisions of that deal that I am sure members of the Israeli government did not particularly like. The notion that Israel controls America's politics is asinine, truly asinine at every level. But because Tucker Carlson is a conspiracy theorist who believes that America ought to give up its global leading role to China and Russia because he believes that. He believes that the President of the United States is a slave. That is his language. Insane.

Tucker Carlson (30:16)

I feel sorry for him, as I do for all slaves. He is not free in this moment at all to do what he thinks is best for himself, for his country.

Ben Shapiro (30:25)

What do you mean?

Tucker Carlson (30:26)

No, he's. Well, he's not free. And we learned that yesterday when Donald Trump announced a ceasefire, clearly with relief, and made its terms, or most of its terms, public. And then that cease fire ended within two hours because Israel intentionally violated the terms by attacking not just southern Lebanon, but the city of Beirut.

Ben Shapiro (30:47)

So are you saying he's a slave to Benjamin Netanyahu?

Tucker Carlson (30:52)

So I don't think it's as simple as he's under the control of Netanyahu. But, you know, you could summarize it that way and you wouldn't be totally inaccurate.

Ben Shapiro (31:03)

So, yes, he believes that. He believes that because he's a fifth columnist. By the way, this is the same schmuck who says that Senator Ted Cruz is morally worse than Nick Fuentes because Senator Ted Cruz is a supporter of Israel, while Nick Fuentes, you know, just loves Stalin and Hitler and openly roots for Iran to win and hates black people and hates Jews. But don't worry, Tucker Carlson says that Ted Cruz is the true threat.

Tucker Carlson (31:27)

I said that I disagreed with Fuentes on those questions. I don't think that you should ever judge or attack people on the basis of their bloodline. I also interviewed Ted Cruz. I tried to interview Randy Fine, both of them have.

Ben Shapiro (31:39)

But let me, let me go back

Tucker Carlson (31:40)

to the next, if I can, if

Ben Shapiro (31:42)

I may finish my answer.

Tucker Carlson (31:45)

I've interviewed both of them or tried to interview Fine. He wouldn't. But I've interviewed Ted Cruz, as you noted, and both of them have defended the genocide in Gaza, the murder of children. And I would say that sending money to a military that Murders children is a little bit more significant, a moral crime than saying ugly things.

Ben Shapiro (32:06)

Well, I mean, it is kind of saying an ugly thing and also a moral crime to claim that a defensive action in the Gaza Strip with specific attempts to prevent civilian casualties is somehow a genocide. But of course, Tucker Carlson is no different from Hasan Piker. They're gonna hold hands and walk off into the distance together. This is the grievance party. It is not a shock to see them on the same page with regard to the Iran conflict, because that has become the flashpoint for that divide that we were talking about between America being exceptional and our allies being good and America being evil and our allies being horrible. Hasan Piker, who again, the left is now treating Hasan Piker with, shall we say, undue respect. Ezra Klein, who again, I like Ezra, but he's off his rocker in suggesting that Hasan Piker ought to be treated as a mainstream voice in the Democratic Party. Hasan Piker has supported pretty much every terror group on planet Earth. He has supported open communist states, repressive tyrannies everywhere. If there were grounds to deport Hasan Piker for his viewpoint, if there were legal grounds, certainly on a moral level, this person is as anti American as anyone in the country. And he sounds just like Tucker Carlson these days. Here he was calling the GOP the biggest terrorist group on the planet.

Hasan Piker (33:24)

I think that the Republicans are far more damaging. The biggest terrorists, the biggest domestic terrorist in this country, the biggest terrorist internationally is the Republican Party. And not only that, but it's just like they. I wanna fight against the growing fascist movement in this country. My frustration with the Democrats is their conciliatory attitude towards that and their lack of investment in this struggle. This idea that on the one hand you say Donald Trump's a dangerous force. I see that, I recognize that. But then you turn around and you take on his anti immigrant narratives and anti immigrant messaging from the 2020 election that you won and decide you're going to be the sincere candidate that ends up dealing with the growth of migration in this country. It's a failure.

Ben Shapiro (34:15)

I mean, the fact that he's on Pod Save America. Those are the Obama bros. And the Obama bros try to proclaim that they are some sort of mainstream moderate Democrats. I mean, again, the Grievance party is real and it is indeed bipartisan already coming up Saturday Night Live sounds exactly like Tucker Carlson these days because they are all part of the grievance party. First, here's the thing. If you own a business, you probably have no idea how many brokers it takes to actually insure your business. That is a gigantic problem for your business. You've got policies scattered everywhere. You got applications that keep asking for the same information over and over again. You have no idea how all those policies fit together when something goes wrong. Our sponsor, super sure, is built to blow all of that up. It's one brokerage. It's a one stop shop for your business coverage with a license, super agent and account team that actually works your account year round, not just at renewal. So instead of wondering who to call, you have one place, one team, one platform to keep your policies organized in a single insurance vault. It's an unbelievably sophisticated tool. I've taken a look at it, I've explored it. It's amazing. It's gonna save you so much time and so much money if you've ever stared at a policy and thought, I speak English, this is not English. Super Sure's Fine Print Facts tool. Translate the legalese into plain language so you can finally see what you have, what it covers and what it doesn't. Right now, head on over to supersure.com, get a full report on your current policies with no obligation for find out if you're overinsured or underinsured or somewhere in between. You want to make sure that your coverage gaps are filled. You want to make sure you got the coverage you need. Head on over to supersure.com Shapiro one super agency, one powerful platform. All your policies in one place. Head on over to super sure.comshapiro that's super sure.comshapiro paid for by Super Short Insurance Agency, LLC, a licensed insurance agency. And of course it is, it is eaten all the way into left wing entertainment. Saturday Night Live's Michael Che over the weekend did the same routine. He suggested that the United States military, again, when Michael Che and Tucker Carlson are on the same side, says something. He suggested that somehow Benjamin Netanyahu controls the United States military, which again, if that is the case, I would really, if Israel were truly controlling America, I would truly like to understand how it is that Tucker Carlson and Hasan Piker and all these folks are so wildly successful and kind of incredible. How nice of Israel to allow that to happen, if indeed they exert that sort of control. Or maybe they don't and you are liars. But here's SNL doing the same routine. There is growing confusion over whether Israel being allowed to continue bombing Lebanon was part of the ceasefire with Iran. Ultimately, that decision comes down to the man controlling our military, Benjamin Netanyahu. Pathetic. The reality is that if the United States had forced Israel to stop attacks on Iran's proxies a thousand miles away in Lebanon, then that would have been a victory for Iran. Clearly. Clearly. Now, here's the thing. How much of an impact does this have inside the Republican Party? The answer is not much. In fact, as Harry Anton of CNN points out, Tucker Carlson's net favorable ratings among Republicans have nosedived. That, of course, is not a shock.

Harry Anton (37:20)

When you go up against Donald Trump and you want to appeal to the Republican base to quote the movie Good Burger, you go on the grinder. And that is exactly what has happened to Tucker Carlson, who has absolutely collapsed among Republicans.

Ben Shapiro (37:31)

So if it is a choice between the President and Tucker Carlson among these voters, what do they basically say?

Harry Anton (37:36)

Yeah, they. They choose Donald Trump basically every single time. Look at this. Okay? The exact same poll, this UMass Lowell poll. Look at this. Net favorables among Republicans. Again, this is Republicans plus Republican leaning Independence. You see Carlson on the right side of your screen at +7 points. Look at where Donald Trump is at +61 points. And this is actually a little bit low for Donald Trump. In other polls around the same time, he was even higher than this. Again, he is crushing, crushing Tucker Carlson.

Ben Shapiro (38:03)

Okay? So again, the Grievance Party is not winning inside the Republican Party, but they certainly are trying. And part of that is a broader demoralization effort, and it is linked very much to the sort of online of it. So over the weekend, the President went to a UFC fight in Miami and the President was cheered. If you were on X, the accounts that were lying and saying that he was widely booed, those were the ones that were getting promoted. I know because I'm on X and I was watching it just open lies. Here's the actual video.

Donald Trump (38:36)

And now, 47th President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump.

Ben Shapiro (38:49)

You can hear everybody cheering. You hearing lots of booze there? No. But the captions on X where Trump gets booed at ufc, that is a lie. It is not true. Okay? But the demoralization effort must continue apace. One of the cases that people like Tucker Carlson or Hasan Piker or all the members of the Grievance Party make is that people who are young in the United States have no future. This is why we must withdraw from the world. It's why we must rewrite the American bargain. It's why we must take free markets and grind them under our boot heel in order to make it easier for the Youngs. Well, here is the problem. It's not True. It's not true. The Wall Street Journal has a fascinating piece out today talking about the financial status of millennials versus Baby boomers. And here's what they find. Older millennials graduated into the 2007-2009 recession. Most of the generation was in their 20s and 30s during the COVID 19 pandemic. Boomers weathered an oil crisis, high inflation, and high interest rates as they got their start in the 1970s and 1980s. And what do they find? Well, they find actually that if you take a look at, for example, the 25 to 34 age group for boomers and also for millennials, what you find is that millennials earn more. And in the age group 35 to 44. So baby boomers who are in that age group in, say, 1980 versus millennials who are in that age group in, say, 2017, millennials earn way more. Way more. Okay. If you take a look at the median price of a new home in $2025, adjusted for median household income and mortgage rates, what you will find is that baby boomers. Remember how we keep hearing that your parents could afford a house, but you can't afford a house? A lie. Not true. It turns out that actually, baby boomers were paying significantly more for a house, as a general rule, than millennials. So, again, this idea that young people, millennials and Gen Xers, they have it worse than any generations of the past, it is not true. It is not true. Now, where you can see serious problems for people who are younger is the elevation in the cost, for example, of things like college tuition and fees which have skyrocketed. Which have skyrocketed since the 1980s. Right. You can see that. That's real. But what you see overall is that incomes are actually higher for the younger than they were for the older than your parents. So much of what we're talking about right now is an op. An OP to demoralize Americans, make them feel terrible about the country, make them feel terrible about the state of the world, make them believe that the only future for America is a weak America. An America that takes free markets and pretends that free markets are bad. An America that looks at America's role in the world, keeping the sea lanes open and preventing evil states from going nuclear. That and that not only can't we do it, we shouldn't do it. We're in actual. We have. We have no moral capacity to do it. It makes us immoral to do it. Again, there are lots of questions about prudence. There are lots of pragmatic questions that we can ask about whether particular interventions or particular measures in an intervention are good or bad, productive or unproductive, or even counterproductive. But the main difference that we are seeing emerge in American politics right now, and this will decide the future of the country, is between the American exceptionalists, the people who believe that America was good, is good and will be good again, and the people who believe that America was never good fundamentally gave up the ghost decades ago, if ever it had one. And that the only cure for the United States is, as Barack Obama once suggested, fundamental change. This has been a long battle. Incoming. The fact that it's infused a little part of the right, a splinter fragment to the right, not a great shock and a time again of social media brain rot, algorithmic nonsense, but it is the fight. It is the fight. Now, the good news is the President is not caving in that fight. The President didn't announce a negotiation with Iran and then immediately cave on his central principles. And again, the leverage is against Iran right now. It is not that Iran has all of the controls. Iran does not have the controls. The only question is how long they can last in the face of overwhelming firepower, in the face of overwhelming economic downturn, in the face of the fact that most of their leadership class is dead. That is just a timing game. But there is no question that on any raw level, the United States has done tremendous damage to Iran and is continuing to do so right now. Okay, now, meanwhile, that was the positive part of the weekend. Is the President taking a strong position? And then there was the bad stuff. So, first of all, we should point out that Pope Leo. You know, I think there are great hopes from some of us who are not big fans of Pope Francis that he would steer more toward Pope Benedict or toward Pope John Paul ii. And it turns out that that seems less and less likely these days. Again, you're talking about someone, when I speak, who has tremendous respect for the Roman Catholic Church. Again, I traveled to Rome and literally went to a service at the Vatican and then gave a gift to Pope Leo. So I have no animus for Pope Leo, particularly in his office. I think that the Catholic Church has been a bulwark of Western civilization for millennia. And I think that that's why it's important what the Pope says. The Pope, this Pope, just like the last Pope, tends to make extremely political pronouncements in broad and vague terms that then either require cleanup or are broadly interpreted as critiques of conservative American policy. The Pope does that a lot. So on Saturday Pope Leo XIV denounced what he called the quote, delusion of omnipotence that is fueling the US Israel war in Iran, according to ap, and demanded political leaders stop and negotiate peace. He presided over a weekend evening service in St. Peter's Basilica on the same day the US and Iran began face to face negotiations. Now again, he didn't mention the US Or President Trump in his prayer, but his tone and message appeared directed at Trump and U.S. officials. And he said enough of the idolatry of self and money, enough of the display of power, enough of war. Now again, if the Pope wants to make a fulsome case, and I discussed this with Matt Frad just last week, if the Pope wishes to make a fulsome case as to why he believes that the war in Iran is somehow a violation of just war principles, he should go ahead and do that. We can have an open argument about that. Some Catholics will agree, some Catholics will disagree. But when he says things like enough of war, it sort of depends on the war you're talking about. And if the Pope expends significantly more ire at the United States for attempting to stop the nuclearization of a terror state that sponsors anti Christian, anti Jewish and anti Muslim, depending on which Muslims terror all across the region, he spends more time on attacking the US for attacking that state than he does on attacking that state. I would suggest that his political suasion is being misplaced. And while this ticked off the president and the president then went directly at the Pope, this again is not a shock. The president, shall we say untruth, social lets it all hang out. So he said Pope Leo is weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy. He talks about fear of the Trump administration, but doesn't mention the fear the Catholic Church and all other Christian organizations had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers and everybody else for holding church services, even when going outside and being 10 and even 20ft apart. I like his brother Louis much better than I like him because Louis is all maga, he gets it and Leo doesn't. I don't want a Pope who thinks it's okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don't want a Pope who thinks it's terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a country that was sending massive amounts of drugs into the United States and even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers and killers into our country. And I don't want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I'm doing exactly what I was elected in a landslide to do. Setting record low numbers in crime and creating the greatest stock market in history. Again, he's not just criticizing the Pope here over what he said at this peace vigil. He's also criticizing the Pope because the Pope did some sort of event with migrants who are attempting to go from North Africa to Italy. And it seems as though he was critiquing the president's immigration policy. And President Trump continued, leo should be thankful because as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn't on any list to be Pope and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that'd be the best way to deal with President Trump. And he keeps going in this direction. Now, again, on the politics, I agree with President Trump's agenda and I do not agree with Pope Leo's agenda. Pope Leo is a religious leader. And again, I wish that the Pope would be clear in what he is saying about what is spiritual and what is political, what exactly he's saying. And I think that this happens a lot. And unless I were able to speak Italian, which I assume is what he was speaking, it's hard for me to speak to exactly what the Pope said. Very frequently I'll find myself critiquing a report of what the Pope said, and then I will have a Catholic friend who will say, that's actually not what he said. And that happens a lot. With that said, is it a good strategy or a good thing for the president to be attacking the Pope this way? It is certainly bad strategy. It is certainly ill timed. Here's the President being asked about Pope Leo yesterday. Why did you attack Pope Leo on Truth Social?

Donald Trump (48:07)

I don't think he's doing a very good job. He likes. Likes crime, I guess. I don't like it. I'm not a big fan of Pope Leo. He's a very liberal person and he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime. He's a man that doesn't think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world.

Ben Shapiro (48:30)

Okay, so again, when it comes to the politics and when it comes to Pope Leo's critique of America's war to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and building ballistic missiles and all the rest of it, I agree with the President, not the Pope. Is it smart to go after the Pope this way? No. Alrighty. Well, meanwhile, Democrats have some problems of their own. Eric Swalwell. So you remember Eric Swalwell. Eric Swalwell is the California congressperson who's very loud. He ran for president once before and it totally failed. You might also remember this very awkward exchange. Now it's awkward. From July 2024, I was at a congressional hearing for the House Judiciary Committee. And you may remember this would be clip 34, this little tete a tete between me and Eric Swalwell.

Eric Swalwell (49:14)

And just because we found some receipts, you did say, I think homosexual activity is a sin.

Ben Shapiro (49:18)

Yes. I'm a religious Jew. That's true.

Eric Swalwell (49:20)

There's a genetic component.

Ben Shapiro (49:21)

You found me out.

Eric Swalwell (49:22)

But the view of all religious people I know has always been that sexual behavior is something that is up to you. And you said, I may have a desire to sleep with many women, but I do not.

Ben Shapiro (49:31)

I agree with me. Yes, that's true.

Eric Swalwell (49:33)

Congratulations on your. Yeah, I'm sure it's very hard to restrain yourself, Mr. Chairman. I just want to shift to Alvin Bragg.

Ben Shapiro (49:47)

Well. Well, I'm sure it's very hard to restrain yourself, said Eric Swalwell to me. The only point that I was making in that piece that he was quoting is a very obvious one. We all have desires. We all have darker impulses. And it is our job as civilized human beings who stop those. And Eric Swalwell was mocking me for that statement because he was saying, well, you may have a difficult. I assume he was saying, you may have a difficult time restraining your desires, but some people like me do not. Well, Captain Fang Fang over here. I got some questions. Got some questions. So not only is Eric Swalwell famous for sleeping with a Chinese spy, but. But also, it turns out that he now has a bevy of sexual misconduct and rape allegations following him around. Oh, no. CNN reported over the weekend, quote, a former staffer of Representative Eric Swalwell, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, says the congressman raped her when she was heavily intoxicated and left her bruised and bleeding, an allegation Swalwell strongly denies. I was pushing him off of me saying no. The woman told CNN of the incident was which she said happened in 2024 after she had stopped working in Swalwell's office. He didn't stop. She said it was the second time Swalwell had non consensual sexual contact with her while she was drunk. In 2019, when she was still working for him, she said she woke up naked with him in a hotel room after a night of heavy drinking. She said she had no memory of what happened, but could feel physically that they had had sexual contact. Now, again, whenever it comes to these allegations, you're making Criminal allegations. Outside evidence would be welcome. However, that that is not the standard that Eric Swalwell uses. He's a believe all women kind of guy. He's a me too kind of guy. So CNN reports three other women who spoke with CNN also alleged various kinds of sexual misconduct by the Democratic congressman, including Swalwell sending them unsolicited explicit messages or nude photos. So, first of all, note to dudes. Ain't no lady on earth who wants a nude photo. Ain't a thing. Ain't a thing. Maybe a thing for gay dudes, not a thing for the ladies. There is not one woman on planet Earth who is desperate for Eric Swalwell's dick pic. Not a real thing in any case. CNN continues. One woman who connected online with Swalwell over her interest in Democratic politics says she ended up extremely drunk inside his hotel room after a night out with the congressman with little memory of what happened earlier in the night at a bar. He kissed her and touched her leg without consent, she said. Another woman who described receiving unsolicited nude messages from Swalwell was social media critter Ally Samarco. She said she initially reached out to the congressman on Twitter to discuss politics. I truly never thought he'd respond. I had like a thousand followers at the time, she said. And he actually responded. Well, it turns out he was ready to deploy. CNN found corroboration for key elements of each of the women's claims. Two family members and a friend said that one woman told them about the alleged 2024 assault. In the following days, CNN also reviewed text messages that she sent to friends describing her allegations. At the same time, quote, I was sexually assaulted on Thursday, she wrote to one of her friends, adding, by Eric. She then went and got an STD and pregnancy test. So scratch what I said earlier about the external evidence. It seems like there's lots of external evidence, actually. Oh, no. Oh no. And apparently everyone knew about this. So apparently similar pattern of events. Swalwell, who is married and has three kids, showed close interest in their lives when they were in their 20s and finding their footing professionally. Then he would send them increasingly sexual messages. Many said they reciprocated and engaged with him in part because of his position of power. So again, this is where it starts to get into is it me too territory. Was it consensual? But in some cases, these inappropriate exchanges escalated to alleged unwanted physical touch or sexual assault, often tied to episodes of heavy drinking. Hmm. Someone found it difficult to restrain himself. Hmm. Here is one anonymous swallow accuser who apparently, according to cnn, says she only remembers flashes of her saying no.

Swalwell Accuser (53:47)

After that bar closed, we went to another. I went to the bathroom, and I don't remember anything after that. You don't remember anything? I remember the next day I came. I can see flashes of that evening of him on top of me, me pushing him off, him grabbing me. It was a lot more aggressive. It was aggressive. Did you say no? Yes, I said no. I said I. In my flash that I can recall, I was pushing him off of me saying no. And what did he do? He didn't stop. He didn't stop. And you woke up the next morning? I woke up the next morning naked, alone in his hotel room.

Ben Shapiro (54:39)

Well, Eric Swalwell. Hmm. Initially, he said the accusations were what he called a flat false. Which, as it turns out, kinda got awkward.

Eric Swalwell (54:50)

A lot has been said about me today through anonymous allegations, and I thought it was important that you see and hear from me directly. These allegations of sexual assault are flat false. They are absolutely false. They did not happen. They have never happened. And I will fight them with everything that I have. They also come on the eve of an election where I have been the frontrunner candidate for governor in California. I do not suggest to you in any way that I'm perfect or that I'm a saint. I have certainly made mistakes in judgment in my past, but those mistakes are between me and my wife. And to her, I apologize deeply for putting her in this position.

Ben Shapiro (55:32)

Someone might have wanted to exercise a little restraint. Well, 55 of Swalwell's former staffers signed a letter calling for him to resign from Congress and for a full law enforcement investigation. In fact, by the way, there's now a movement afoot in Congress to kick a bunch of Congress people out, people who have engaged in sexual misconduct and all the rest. They said, quote, as leaders of teams working for Eric Swalwell, we're horrified by the recent reporting in the San Francisco Chronicle and by cnn. We stand with our former colleague and the other women who have come forward. We believe you should stand with them, too. So a bunch of people are going to resign for sure. A local reporter named Steven Tavares admitted that a lot of people knew about all of this. He's author of something called Bay Area Insider. Quote, I've covered Eric Swalwell since he was a member of the Dublin City Council shortly after being elected to Congress in 2013. His behavior towards women was known by all levels of our local government and the Alameda County Democratic Party. Don't get it twisted Nobody has been more critical of Swallow over the years. I tried repeatedly to get the stories out. I can't force women to speak out, and when they chose not to, I didn't push. I also knew that Swell was known to threaten litigation. Again, we get into a bit of a dicey area here when apparently everyone knows that he was doing it, but no one reported it. Remember that Cesar Chavez story from a few weeks ago where it turns out the labor leader was extremely rapey? Allegedly. Well, yeah, it's kind of like that. People decided to look the other way because of his politics. Matt Iglesias of Bloomberg said the Swell situation was, shall we say, widely rumored. It's interesting the gossip doesn't seem to have made its way to all the big shots out West. Hmm. Well, apparently others said they had been warned as well. The president of an organization called Afghan Evac named Sean Van Diver said he'd been warned. Quote, I owe an apology to every person I introduced to Eric Swalwell over the years. The rumors about him weren't new. It had been circulating for a long time. Many people were aware of them. When he asked for my support in the California gubernatorial race, I raised those concerns directly. He unequivocally denied them. Well, it turns out that he was lying, or at least allegedly lying. So it turns out that now he has stepped out of the governor's race. He released a tweet this morning announcing that he was out. He said, quote, I'm suspending my campaign for governor. To my family, staff, friends, and supporters, I'm deeply sorry for mistakes in judgment I've made in my past. I will fight the serious false allegations that have been made. But that's my fight, not a campaign's. Well, good luck to him in finding his restraint. Democrats are having some problems out there. It's not the easiest thing, and I'm sure he'll find somebody to blame who is not himself. This happens to many Democrats, as it turns out. For example, Maine Senate candidate Graham Plattner, who is beloved of the Bernie Sanders wing, but also has an awkward Nazi tattoo on him. He is now blaming military culture for his tattoo. Well, that's. We'll see how it goes for him. Is there anything you've done or said that you regret that did not come from the stresses you internalized? From post traumatic stress itself? That is to say, is PTSD the explanation for everything, or did you also just make some additional human errors that you want to explain or contextualize?

Eric Swalwell (58:49)

Yeah, I'll be up front. I've never laid the entire fault of my previous opinions at earlier parts of my life at the feet of only post traumatic stress. When I left the military, I came out of a hyper masculine, hyper violent place. I did four tours in the infantry. We have a crude sense of humor in the infantry. We certainly have a, I would say narrow view of a lot of topics and that colored my opinions and my beliefs.

Ben Shapiro (59:21)

Well, I don't believe you. I'm sure it was the military that did it. Weird, because I know a lot of members of the military and members who have served in the military before. People have served in the military and none of them have a Nazi tattoo. So there's that as well. Democrats, they are not exactly moderate. Okay? In international news, Meanwhile, Viktor Orban's 16 year rule has ended. If you want to learn more about Viktor Orban, what his rule meant, what he was doing, I did an hour long interview with Viktor Orban last year. You can go and you can watch that over at our YouTube channel. It is not really an upset. There had been significant movement in the polls toward his opponent, a man named Peter Magyar. There's sort of an attempt to play this as though Magyar is a liberal in some way. There's very little evidence that Magyar is, is in fact a sort of trans flag flying, open borders liberal. That that is not the case. In fact, he used to be a member of the Fidesh party, which was Orban's party. And then he broke out because he was opposed to Orban on a couple of issues. One was allegations of corruption inside Pradesh and the other was the issue of the Ukraine war because Orban had taken a very pro Russia position with regards to Ukraine and Magyar took a pro EU position trying to support Ukraine in its war against against Russia. Magyar, according to Breitbart, attempted to portray Orban and his party as beholden to Russia. And then there were a bunch of scandals in the final days of the campaign. The recordings emerging of Orban's foreign minister, a guy named Peter Gijaro, allegedly passing on EU classified information to Moscow's top diplomat Sergey Lavrov. And also Magyar had broken with Orban over allegations of corruption. It was revealed a couple of years ago that the then Hungarian president Katalin Novak had pardoned the ex deputy director of the Kasuth Juja's children's home after being convicted of helping cover child sex abuse by his boss. That is what led Magyar to leave. He says that he is going to. He was actually, he was campaigning against Orban from the right on immigration, he has stronger anti immigration views even than Orban. He still has sort of vague views on LGBTQ divided by sign, which is a big issue over in Hungary. When it comes to Russia, obviously, he's significantly more anti Russia than Orban was. And he has vowed that he is going to take the International Criminal Court and the rest of the EU's institutional framework on sort of a case by case basis. So is this a wild switch away from conservatism in Hungary? It seems like not. And an attempt, a sort of bizarre attempt, to swivel this over into a referendum on American politics. It's like a Democrat just won in Hungary. Like here, Starmer just won in Hungary. That's not quite accurate either. All right, folks, the show continues for our members. Right now, I'm gonna answer a question I've been getting a lot about whether President Trump is about to draft everybody or something. We'll get to that in just a moment. Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us. Sam.