The Ben Shapiro Show - Ep. 2397 - You’re In An Endless TSA Line Because Of The Democrats

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Folks, if you're traveling today, chances are

you're listening to this at the airport

in the TSA line, which is endless.

And you're probably getting frustrated.

You want to know why this is happening?

One word, Democrats.

I'm going to tell you all about it

and more today on the Ben Shapiro show.

The standoff over the funding

of the Department of Homeland Security,

including TSA,

continues.

People are waiting hours because of it.

According to NPR,

the Transportation Security Administration

is experiencing the longest wait times ever

in its 24-year history

because of the ongoing partial shutdown

according to agency, deputy administrator,

Ha Nguyen McNeil.

This person told the House Homeland Security Committee

on Wednesday that wait times

at some major airports have exceeded four hours.

And that employees at those airports

are calling out of work at rates of 40 to 50%

according to McNeil.

And TSA may even have to close smaller airports

due to understaffing.

And she worries the agency will continue

to lose officers to more steady jobs

and fail to attract new talent,

which, of course, is not a giant shock.

Now, this is crazy talent.

It's insanity and it's happening

because Democrats have decided

that posturing over ICE

is more important than basic safety standards

and citizen protections all over the United States.

The Senate Majority Leader, John Thune,

is not wrong when he says that Democrats seem to believe

that the current shutdown is good for that left-wing base.

For them, it's all about politics.

And it always has been.

You go back to the fall shutdown,

the Democrat shut the government down,

the whole government down for 46 days last fall.

And if you remember Chuck Schumer's statement

that every day gets better for us,

and then you have Brian Schatz,

a member of the Democrat leadership,

and this shutdown saying, we are very serene.

This is, I mean, I think they're just playing politics

with this, have been from the beginning.

They think it's really good with their base.

Their left-wing base won't take,

they won't take yes for an answer.

And so the Democrats are having a hard time

taking yes for an answer.

But they're going to have to,

because at some point, people are realizing

that it is the Democrats who are blockating

and have been blockating

funding to the Department of Homeland Security now,

literally for 46 days.

Now, for some reason, Democrats seem to think they can

just insult their way to political victory here.

This is very simple.

The Democrats are shutting down

that Department of Homeland Security.

Everyone knows this.

All they have to do is pass a clean funding bill for DHS.

But somehow Jimmy Kimmel is out there

just randomly insulting the new DHS secretary,

Mark Wayne Mullin, for the great crime of being a plumber,

which is a, which is a weird take from Jimmy Kimmel

who was like a shock-jock radio sports guy.

Why is he commenting on this in this way?

Also, I was informed that it's good

that AOC was a bartender.

So, I guess it's bad that a man who was a senator

is now running DHS,

because at one time he was a plumber?

Usually, Johnny might not be with us much longer,

but don't worry, Trump's got a whole new generation

of thinkers lined up,

including his newly confirmed secretary of Homeland Security,

Mark Wayne, Chuck Mike, Bruce Dave Mullin.

Mount, maybe Mullin's better.

He is the now former senator of Oklahoma.

Before he was elected to the Senate,

Mark Wayne Mullin was a low-level MMA fighter and a plumber.

That's right.

We have a plumber protecting us from terrorism now.

All right, work for Super Mario.

Why not, Mark Wayne?

But honestly, I mean,

if Trump is going to keep picking these

unqualified people to run the department,

why not have more fun with it?

I mean, next time instead of Mark Wayne,

how about Little Wayne for Homeland Security?

Who is writing those quasi-jokes for Jimmy Kim?

I can't imagine why his writings are really, really, really terrible.

Again, I'm not sure why the fact that he was once a plumber

and then was elected to the Senate makes him unfit to run DHS.

That's a weird take.

Well, most Democrats are actually going

harder than this.

Brandon Johnson, the ridiculous mayor of Chicago,

actually debuted his own snow-plow truck,

festooned with a banner that says on it,

abolish ICE.

Get it?

Because he's abolishing like the actual material that is ICE.

But he also wants to abolish ICE.

Things are going amazing in the city of Chicago.

To all of the residents who participated in our snow-plow naming contest,

keep speaking up in every way and any way that you can.

I look forward to meeting with the Chicago ones who submitted the winning names,

and I look forward to seeing our cities cry,

our spirit, and even yes, our humor represent us again next year.

And so with that, take a moment to

I guess take in all that you all have been waiting for.

This moment is finally here.

The snow-plow with the most votes, most entries,

abolish ICE.

Thank you very much.

Oh my gosh.

They had a voting contest in Chicago to name their snow-plow,

and it was named abolish ICE, and he is happy about this.

Genius level politicking right there.

Meanwhile, Representative Thomas Wasey,

Democrat, he's arguing full skill for legalization of illegal immigrants.

If you've been here since President Trump became the president on January 20th of 2017,

you've been here since that time, and you haven't committed a crime,

but for not having proper documentation.

Let's figure out a way to legalize you.

So you can go to work every day.

You can pay your tax and you can raise your family.

You can travel freely and not be afraid of being deported.

I'm just going to point out again, Democrats seem to believe that illegal immigrants roaming free

is more important than you being able to get to your plane on time.

That is what is happening right now, which is crazy.

Because first of all, they shouldn't be roaming free.

They committed a crime in entering the country.

How pathetic is the left on these issues?

The Loyola University of Chicago student newspaper.

That's the campus newspaper of the murdered student shared in Gorman.

Issued a formal apology for calling her murderer in illegal immigrant.

I'm not even kidding.

So she was murdered, and the student newspaper put out this statement, quote,

in the body of the original post,

we described the man who was charged as an illegal immigrant,

using language provided by the Department of Homeland Security.

That language does not align with associated press style,

nor does it align with the values of this newspaper.

No human's existence is illegal,

and we quickly changed our wordings to reflect that.

We acknowledge the harm such language can cause,

and the power and importance of the words we choose to use.

I mean, this is crazy.

It's all ridiculous.

That's ridiculous.

No one says that a human's existence is illegal.

But the term is not illegal human.

The term is illegal immigrant.

You immigrated illegally.

That is literally what that term means.

But apparently, at the student newspaper,

they are more concerned about the terminology to address illegal immigration than they are

about the fact that an illegal immigrant allegedly murdered one of their students.

Well, we'll get to the craziness of Democrats trying to defend the

indefensible in just a moment.

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Alrighty, so the Democrats aren't just defending illegal immigration.

They're defending crime, wholesale, wholesale.

So Philadelphia has been in epic fail when it comes to law

and order for years and years and years and years.

Remember just a couple of years ago, we visited the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia,

which was basically an open-air fentanyl market,

one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen in person.

Well, now the Philadelphia DA,

Krasner, Larry Krasner, he is threatening to prosecute ICE agents.

There's no crazy Democrats are.

So Democrats, apparently, many Democrats believe

that ICE agents ought to be prosecuted, but illegal immigrants ought not.

And you should wait in the line at the airport because of this.

Here is the Philadelphia DA.

The president cannot pardon you.

And yes, I will put you in handcuffs,

and I will put you in a courtroom.

And if necessary, I will put you in a jail cell.

Okay, so again, he wants to arrest the ICE agents.

And Carol, I'm loving it.

The White House pointed out that this is kind of disgraceful,

that you have state level actors,

local actors threatening to arrest federal law enforcement for enforcing federal law.

He's talking to the ICE agents who are handing out water bottles and are helping people move

through lines at airports. It's a disgraceful comment.

The men and women of ICE are great people.

I would encourage this lawmaker, whose name I don't know and don't care to know,

to actually sit down and speak with the ICE agents who are on the ground doing this important work,

not just in our nation's airports, but again, to remove violent, dangerous,

illegal alien criminals from our country to protect this individual,

and all of us in this room and Americans across the country from murderers,

pedophiles, and rapists who have been allowed into our country by Democrat politicians.

Again, she's not wrong. And of course, the law breaking in Philadelphia, the open law breaking,

and also the open anti-Americanism is pretty astonishing.

So there's a clip that was rocketing around the internet yesterday that is truly an amazing clip.

This is a protesters in Philadelphia. These would be pro-Iran, pro-Hamas,

pro-terrorist protesters, openly in Philadelphia,

celebrating the killing of American troops, openly celebrating it.

I'm pretty sure we have an immigration problem, folks.

I'm pretty sure our standards are too large when folks like this are in our country,

they should not be. This is what's happening in Philadelphia just the other day.

Thomas, Mr. Palla, also a law, all of the forces we celebrate.

These popular forces on the ground spread every waking moment in direct confrontation with

Zionism, and they rely on a stronger audience state to maintain their fighting capacity.

Okay, so this person, again, is cheering the death of Americans,

calling for the death of more Americans,

celebrating terrorists groups and celebrating Iran for supporting terrorist groups.

I will point out at this point that even if this person immigrated here,

assume that person is not a natural born American citizen,

if that person immigrated here and then holds those principles,

that person can be deported under current law and should be deported under current law,

and so should the people cheering for it.

You are not allowed to come to this country and support terrorist groups.

You are not allowed to do that. That is a violation of immigration law.

That is falsification of your immigration papers.

But for so many of these folks, the law breaking is the point.

The anti-Americanism is the point.

I mean, you wonder, on a broader level, why do so many people in the Democratic Party seem so

sanguine about a wide open border, about importing people that we can't vet,

about allowing the taxpayer to pay for all these bills?

The answer is a lot of the people in the Democratic Party are totally fine with anti-Americanism.

They like the anti-Americanism.

Ilhan Omar, another immigrant we never should have admitted to the United States,

given her wild hatred for America and our allies.

Ilhan Omar, she's railing against the war in Iran, and here she was

trotting out one of the oldest hackney chestnuts available in the political arsenal.

Working families are tired of being told their government can't afford to bomb another country,

but cannot afford to feed its children.

I am tired too. I've lived through war.

I know it is not a game. It is never one time cost.

It cannot be reduced to a sound bite by politicians who have no regard for the cost of human life

when it comes to warfare. War is not paid for a dollar alone.

It is paid in the lives of young Americans who we sent to fight this war.

Herprous heading that she gives a damn about American soldiers is really going.

Truly going for a woman who wrote a letter of support to a person who tried to join ISIS

to a judge way back when who said that something happened to some people on 9-11.

Ilhan Omar has yet to find a terrorist group she cannot find some sort of excuse for.

And when she uses the stick by the way, this ridiculous stick,

where she suggests that it's the cost of war that she really is opposed to,

let me ask a question. If I said you could have all of your social programs,

we can find all of them, but also we're going to do the war in Iran.

Do you think suddenly that she would be in favor of it?

It's not an affordability issue. The thing she opposes is attacks on anti-American enemies abroad.

All of which of course is part and parcel of a third worldest strategy to undermine the United States.

Third worldism is the philosophy that suggests that people suffering in the third world everywhere.

That's the fault of the United States and thus the United States must pay.

Now, the reality is, in the current conflict with Iran,

we are kicking the living hell out of the Iranian government,

which is a good thing. It is a thing worth celebrating.

For those in the back of the room, here is Secretary of State Marco Rubio explaining why.

And they all warned about how Iran was dangerous, but they refused to act.

And this president is not someone that's going to refuse to act.

He's not going to leave a danger like this in place.

He's going to address it and that is what he is doing.

From the very first night of this operation, the president made it very clear.

People like this, and now what I'm talking about is not the people of Iran.

The people that run this country are radical, shia clerics. These are religious fanatics.

Look what they are doing now. At their weakest point, this is the weakest Iran has ever been.

And look at what they're doing. They're attacking embassies.

They're embassies. They're attacking hotels.

They imagine what these people would do if they had a nuclear weapon.

That is an unacceptable risk for the world.

That, of course, is right.

And as the Secretary of War, Peter Hegseth pointed out,

Iranians lie about everything up to and including their possession of long-range missiles.

Iran. Washington DC is 3,300 kilometers from Venezuela.

Another country president Trump did something about that partnered for a long time with Iran.

Of course, that is correct. Steve Woodcoff, our chief negotiator with the Iranians.

Remember, he was trying to negotiate a deal with them with Jared Kushner.

And then they announced that they wanted to build a nuclear weapon.

Well, he reminded everybody of that today.

The Iranians have the inalienable right to enrich.

Then we heard they possessed enough 60% enriched material,

460 kilograms to make 11 atomic bombs.

Finally, we heard the following statement.

They would not give up diplomatically,

what we could not win militarily.

In other words, they were again miscalculating the success of Midnight Hammer.

Which was a total success.

Well, how well are things going?

A statement from Admiral Brad Cooper of Senkham Commander.

He said, quote,

in the death of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,

Navy Commander Admiral Ali Reza Tanksiri from an Israeli air strike makes the region safer.

As a couple of days ago, Israel killed the head of the Iranian Navy,

who was commanding all of the shutdown in the straight-of-formos.

According to Cooper, Tanksiri commanded the IRGC

and for eight years of the Navy.

During which time, the IRGC harassed thousands of innocent merchant mariner's

attacked hundreds of vessels with one-way attack drones and missiles

and killed countless innocent civilians.

He was designated a specially designated global terrorist by the United States Treasury in June 2019,

with additional secondary sanctions added in 2024 related to drone development.

Since the commencement of Operation Epic Fury, again,

according to Admiral Brad Cooper, the Senkham Commander,

92% of the large ships in the Iranian Navy have been eliminated.

As a result, IRGC has completely lost their ability to project power in the Middle East

or around the world.

Now at the loss of their long-time leader, the IRGC Navy is on an irreversible decline.

This military strikes on the IRGC Navy will continue.

Therefore, we call on every Iranian serving in the IRGC Navy to immediately abandon their

post and return home to avoid further risk of unnecessary injury or death.

All right, so what comes next?

Well, President Trump, again, he's going to play a double game here.

He says negotiations are continuing.

He says they continue because the Iranians want it because they have been beat to believe.

He was the President yesterday.

They want to make a deal.

The reason they want to make a deal is they have been just beatish.

Well, yet wrong.

The President had announced during these negotiations that Iran had given us a present of some sort.

He did announce what that present was yesterday.

It turns out what the present is is basically allowing some Pakistani flag

ships to pass through the strait of hormones without harassing.

They said to show you the fact that we're real and solid and we're there.

We're going to let you have eight boats of oil, eight big boats of oil.

This was two days ago and they'll sail up tomorrow.

That was three days ago.

And I didn't think much about it.

And then I watched the news and they said a very good anchor actually.

Happy to be Fox.

But I watched it and they said something's unusual happening.

There are eight boats that are going right up the middle of the Homo strait.

Eight big tankers are going loaded up with oil right through it and I said,

well, I guess, I guess they were right and they were, they were real.

And I think they were Pakistani flagged.

And I said, well, I guess we deal with the right people.

And actually, they then apologized for something they said and they said,

we're going to send two more boats and we ended up being 10 boats.

Okay.

Now, is that a real gift or is that the Iranians basically allowing more oil out to Pakistan in

order to convince the Pakistanis to play middleman, unclear.

But President Trump is not letting lose kind of what he is going to do next.

Again, the President's strategic ambiguity is more effective than that of any other

president of my lifetime. That's for sure.

The Steve said that they've got enough uranium to make 11 bombs.

That's a very scary thing.

So, well, it's again, I can't talk to you about that.

You're asking me a question.

You're essentially saying, will I go in and do something?

I can't talk to you about that.

Well, President Trump did add who's asked about the fact that there are a lot of Arab allies

in the region who are concerned about the United States not sticking around for long enough to

truly cripple Iranian regime permanently.

Now, President Trump said, is, listen, if we decide that we're not going to stay for the moment,

it is not as though we do not have airplanes that can fly a very long way very quickly.

I would probably like us to stay, but if we don't stay, like it's a beautiful thing about

aeroplanes that go 2,000 miles an hour as you can get back there very quickly.

If we don't stay, we're going to be protecting them.

We know they've been very good.

Hey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, in particular.

Well, the Arab allies are being useful, Israel's being useful.

And then you have the Europeans.

Yes, the Europeans will get to them in just one second.

First, the legacy media, they hold Americans who believe the way we do in contempt,

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Well, as this conflict continues,

a matter that is certainly going to come up for discussion in future months.

We'll be our relations with our NATO allies.

So far, they have been utterly and completely useless.

No shock there.

The European Union Vice President Caja Calis,

she says that the Iran War has to stop now.

Well, ladies, since you and your buddies aren't helping out at all,

I think that we don't really need your say in this.

I think that your input is zero, zero.

Here she was.

From this war, we need to exit from the war,

not escalate this further because the consequences for everybody around the world are quite severe.

I could not care less about what the EU has to say on this matter.

Honestly, I could not.

And we are footing the bill for an enormous amount of the arsenal in Ukraine.

I think that's a good thing for us to do.

I think it's a worthwhile thing for us to we've protected the Europeans for generations.

And I think that that's in our interest.

But they are totally useless.

They run for the hills at the first available opportunity.

It's really pathetic.

And then them re-injecting themselves to explain that we need to be part of a negotiation.

The Europeans can kiss our ass.

They are so useless.

They are beyond useless.

Meanwhile, here is Canada's foreign minister Anita Anon.

Like we need to hear from the Canadians, America's top hat.

We need to hear from the people who couldn't even beat us at hockey.

Okay, let's go for it, lady.

Well, I spoke with Marco Rubio on Monday afternoon.

We had a lengthy conversation about numerous issues including the situation in the Middle East.

We are very much focused on ensuring the continued dialogue.

And I indicated that Canada wants to play a role in this diplomacy to work towards the

preservation of civilian life.

Canada as a humanitarianist.

We have a cross-conflicts put forward humanitarian aid, Haiti, Cuba, Gaza.

And in terms of Lebanon, $37.7 million announced just a couple of weeks ago.

Wow, wow.

With that kind of money, you can buy like seven cups of coffee in Forne.

That's incredible.

A really well-done Canada.

We need to hear from the people who have been tilting toward the Chinese.

Sounds great.

Now, you got to feel a little bit for the NATO Chief Mark Rudy.

Because Rudy is trying to hold together NATO at this point.

And he understands that actually NATO probably should be doing something.

But the NATO countries aren't actually doing anything.

And so he is actually being morally clear here.

He says that the President is making the world safer, which is true.

It's just he can't get any of the countries that are actually members of NATO

to do anything to help.

Because the Europeans really like strongly worded letters and doing nothing.

And also opening their borders to mass radical Islamic immigration.

They're there for all those things.

They're there to chew bubble gum and allow Sharia law to take over their countries.

And they're running out of bubble gum.

Well, anyway, here's the NATO Chief Frank to hold things together.

We have seen with North Korea, if we negotiate for too long,

you might pass the moment where you can still get this thing down.

And North Korea now has the nuclear capability.

If Iran would have the nuclear capability,

including together with the missile capability,

it would be a direct threat,

a existential threat to Israel, to the region,

to Europe, to the stability in the world.

So the President doing this is crucial.

And I've seen the polling,

but I really hope the American people will be with him.

Because he is doing this to make the whole world safer.

What that guy said.

The President Trump is talking about NATO yesterday.

And he said, listen, we've been back in your play the whole time.

We've been back in you to the Hilt.

But if you're not there for us,

why should we be there for you?

Like, Alliance says,

you want to say that we have temporary

coalitions of convenience?

That's one thing.

But you want to claim that you're like a strong ally.

You know, you might want to chip in when the chips are down.

He didn't have to.

I didn't ask him.

I just said, you should tell me now.

I mean, we're always going to be there.

At least we were.

I don't know about anymore to be honest with you.

I would have to be honest.

We were always there when they needed help.

We always would have been there when they needed help.

I mean, think of it.

We're there to protect Europe from Russia.

Okay, he is not wrong.

So where did things currently stand?

Well, negotiations may be happening or they may not.

But the United States must change the status quo

in the state of foremost.

That means radically weakening the regime still further.

Because here's the thing.

If you leave the Iranians in charge of the straight,

the oil prices will not go down.

They will just stay precisely where they are forever.

If you let the Iranians continue to threaten countries around them,

add nauseam,

then all of the geopolitical turmoil currently

baked into markets by the stock market is down.

Why the oil prices are up.

That will stay there forever.

So the Trump administration can still weaken the regime.

There are lots of options to do.

So the only question is which option,

President Trump will use.

The critics, however, are Legion.

And as for our usual arrangement,

totally dishonest, John Stewart,

the pseudo-intellectual sad clown of the left.

I mean, truly, I'm not sure anyone

in modern American media history has been as bad

for the country as John Stewart.

Truly.

If you go all the way back to that time,

who's on Crossfire with Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala,

and he was saying that they ruined America by having

kind of normal debate with one another,

and then he made his stupid faces on TV

for 10 years while playing 30-second clips of folks

without any sort of serious conversation

about the underlying issues.

If anything ruined media in America,

and ruined politics in America,

it is precisely that approach.

The approach of John Stewart.

Well, now he's mocking Pete Hagseth,

because Pete Hagseth talks about American dominance.

There was John Stewart.

I think your choice of Trump

for a second term is an indication

of America deciding to go along with its own decline.

And the arrogance that you talk about,

when you hear that, that vile Hagseth,

sort of spraying this with stuff from the Bible,

and telling us about what to believe and all this stuff,

whilst clearly glorifying

in the sense of domination and violence of other people.

It's almost sexual for him.

It almost feels as though it's erotic.

Wow, that is a horrible thought that I've never had before.

Oh, you got to watch him.

You got to watch him more.

There's a reveling in it.

There is a reveling.

No doubt about it.

Donning, he came out the other day.

No quarter, no mercy.

Just blatantly saying like,

you know those things that we came up after World War II

to try and prevent the horrors?

Yeah, we're getting rid of all that.

What a pathetic human, John Stewart is.

I have a question.

Are we not supposed to root for the troops

to do what they have to do?

Are we supposed to pretend that

there is nothing incredible

about what the United States military is doing?

Must we pretend that thing?

When the worst regime on earth

faces down American firepower.

When we watch some of the worst people

in modern history be eliminated,

are we supposed to pretend that nothing good is happening?

It's just pathetic stuff from these folks.

Truly pathetic.

But that's pretty much all they got at this point.

All the critics continue to maintain

that somehow Iran despite being

beheaded and thrashing about like a dying snake

is actually somehow winning.

So the economist, which has basically become

the Jim Kramer of International Politics,

Jim Kramer of course,

the financial analyst on CNBC

who makes stockpicks and is always wrong.

Like wrong so often,

that reverse Kramer is an actual trade

that you can buy and it outperforms the market

by a fairly significant margin.

While the economist,

they put out a piece

on the cover of their magazine called Advantage Iran,

which I'm sorry to break it to you.

If you think that Iran has an advantage right now,

you're out of your mind.

You're out of your mind.

Their entire leadership class has been killed.

Every major military apparatus they have

has been extraordinarily degraded or destroyed.

They've been relegated to firing a few ballistic missiles

at our allies and harassing shipping

in the street of hormones by firing some drones.

They are recruiting 12-year-olds to their army.

That is not a joke.

Again, 12-year-olds are being recruited

to the IRGC right now.

Is that the mark of a country that is winning,

of a country that has an advantage?

Well, here's what the economist has to say.

The Islamic Republic has suffered dramatic blows.

Many of its leaders and hundreds of civilians are dead.

Its air defenses are in pieces.

Its navy and missile launchers are largely gone,

and yet the regime endures.

As we warn when this war began,

its mirror survival counts as a victory of sorts.

I mean, of sorts is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

You get your ass absolutely kicked by the United States,

continuing to exist, quote-unquote counts as a victory of sorts.

Well, the economist goes on.

At home, the regime's grip is not easing,

but has anything been strengthened by the onslaught

from America and Israel?

Oh, has it been?

Has it been strengthened?

There's no way to tell this, by the way,

because the people have not been freed from their homes

to rise up against the regime.

Has it been strengthened from two months ago

when they murdered 32,000 people in the streets?

32,000 people?

Has their grip been strengthened?

Has it been strengthened by Israeli suicide drones

hitting specific IRGC checkpoints?

The economist says the hardline revolutionary guards

are in control, which they were before.

Domestic opponents, whether ethnic separatists

or urban protesters are definitely quiet.

They're definitely quiet.

Schmucko, because the United States and Israel

told them to stay inside, literally.

The United States is putting out messages.

Every single day to the Iranian people to stay inside

because the bombs are still falling outside

is really doing the same thing.

It rounds stocks of highly enriched uranium,

says the economist.

Some 400 kilograms remain untouched,

probably still under rubble.

Well, I mean, if it's under rubble,

then how are they better off?

Now, most strikingly,

Iran has established a chokehold over these straight-of-form moves,

blocking exports of oil and gas from the Gulf

that account for a fifth of the global oil supply.

Now, again, I think the thing to point out here

is that it is not as though they did not have that chokehold.

Before, they did.

It is not as though.

In the absence of this conflict, Iran could not flex.

Iran had the power to flex,

but they were flexing beyond the straight-of-form moves before.

They were stretching with their proxies.

They were controlling an entire swath of land

between Iran and the Mediterranean Sea,

via Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

The economist says even though its proxies are weaker than before,

Iran still has cards to play abroad.

Again, I love the caveats.

The caveats are really astonishing here.

So, sure.

I mean, their whole military has basically been...

Sure, their leadership is...

Sure, their proxies are weaker.

Sure, their navy is mostly underwater,

but they're really winning.

They have the advantage.

And says the economist,

nor is Israel really any safer than before.

Benjamin Netanyahu is thrilled by its sustained attack on Iran.

First of all, you got all of the economist,

which refers to Netanyahu by his Hebrew name.

Benjamin is just Benjamin in the Hebrew.

Yeah, I got to love the economist.

Very subtle.

Nor is Israel really any safer than before.

Benjamin Netanyahu is thrilled by its sustained attack on Iran.

And Iranian missiles have penetrated Israeli airspace,

killing civilians.

The nuclear threat from Iran has not been eradicated.

Okay, so I talk to people in Israel all the time, all the time.

Going forward, those people feel a lot safer than they did

before the war, given the fact that Iran's ballistic missile

launchers have been degraded by at least 75 percent,

given the fact that Iran's proxies have been degraded in the extreme.

I mean, how degraded is Hizbollah at this point?

Hizbollah is so degraded in Lebanon.

That was their chief proxy, the Iranian chief proxy in the region.

Hizbollah is so degraded that Israeli troops are strolling over the border with Lebanon

and simply pushing their way up to the Latani river,

which is like one third of the way up the country.

And they're holding that territory and not giving it back to Hizbollah.

And as for the nuclear threat from Iran has not been eradicated,

it's been set back a fair bit, considering all the scientists are dead.

All the leadership is dead.

All of their nuclear facilities have been bombed.

And at best, the uranium that has been enriched is under rubble as the economist itself admits.

Without regime change, it says the economist,

the ballistic missile threat will return,

requiring Israel to strike Iran every few months.

Most worrying for the Jewish state,

it's long standing ties with America may be under strain.

So basically the only thing that is apparently a problem

is that Israel's relationships with America may be under strain.

Um, I'm old enough to remember when it was under strain under Joe Biden,

because I am more than one year old.

Iran feels it has the upper hand over Mr. Trump,

says the economist.

It has shown that it is more capable than America of both

inflicting pain and withstanding it.

Mr. Trump must agree to a full ceasefire, must.

The United States must agree to a full ceasefire with the country

that we are grinding under our boots.

Like what in the, we have to agree to a ceasefire.

We do.

We, a country that has suffered in military turns,

minimal retaliation, truly minimal retaliation from the enemy.

We have to agree to a ceasefire.

We, the United States.

And then we also have to compel Israel to abide by it.

So it's not enough that we have to agree to a ceasefire.

We have to force the Israelis to also

not go after Iranian ballistic missile rebuilding

and nuclear weaponry.

Talks on reopening the straits, says the economist.

And steering around away from its nuclear program will be bitterly difficult.

So we have to preemptively ceasefire.

Preemptive surrender or say the Europeans

in the least surprising news of the day.

Preemptive surrender.

Yeah, that's the way you win wars.

Again, none of this makes any sense at all.

If we leave the Iranian government in place, I have a question.

How does that make oil prices lower?

Do you just trust the Iranians that they're not going to harass the shipping?

Is that how this works?

How doesn't the market price of the possibility of an Iranian shutdown

at any time for any reason get priced in?

Giving Iran more leverage is a fool's errand

and preemptive surrender, preemptive ceasefire on the basis that Iran is harassing shipping.

Man, the economist geniuses over there.

The reality is the president has a lot of tools

and it is arsenal.

If the war were to end today, the United States would have so significantly degraded Iran's capacity

that Iran would be on its last legs anyway.

That is the reality.

As we've been discussing for days, the Iranian economy does not exist.

It does not exist.

The Iranian government was trying to hold the reall

to an exchange rate against the dollar of $42,000.

They tried it for years.

And then they had to give up the ghost in January and it immediately skyrocketed

from $42,000 per US dollar to $988,000 per US dollar.

Right now, there is no price for realls.

They do not exist.

And that is because of the damage that we have dealt them.

So again, the notion that we are losing, that we're on the wrong side here.

We're on the wrong side.

We can't outlast them.

Maybe we can't outlast them.

If we can't outlast them, it'll be because of the cowardice of places like the economist.

I think the most important line there is

that Iran has shown it is more capable than America of both

inflicting pain and withstanding it.

They have certainly not shown they're capable of inflicting pain beyond the United States.

That is absolutely false.

But the only arguable thing in this piece is the argument made by the economist

that Iran has shown that it's more capable of withstanding pain in Iranian government.

If that's true, it's only because places like the economist

attempt to make the West incapable of withstanding even the most

minute and temporary sacrifice on behalf of a long-term victory.

All right.

Well, meanwhile, in terms of victory, cultural victory, the New York Times reported yesterday

that the International Olympic Committee has now banned trans athletes.

Again, I'm old enough to remember when this was a terrible, terrible thing that we

we must have men fighting women, for example.

According to the New York Times,

the International Olympic Committee has barred transgender athletes from competing in the

women's category of the Olympics and said that all participants in those events must undergo genetic

testing. The decision, the most consequential since Kirstie Coventry was elected last year as

the first woman to serve as president of the IOC, followed a board meeting and months of speculation

over the organization's policy on one of the most contentious issues facing global sports.

The rules will be applicable starting at the next Olympics in LA in 2028.

Again, just shows how culture has moved, culture has radically shifted.

There was a time when we were the only company in America who said that men were men

and women were women. We were refused to use the preferred pronouns and we were basically treated

as outcasts by social media companies. Major social media companies tried to shut down our capacity

to disseminate information over it. And now, even the Olympics is saying, hey, by the way,

no men competing with the ladies. That is a big cultural victory.

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Okay, other sort of cultural news while we're at it. A lot of people seem very upset about the

new HBO trailer for Harry Potter. So my kids are very, very into Harry Potter. My daughter loves

Harry Potter. In fact, one of her abotments that gives from a friend was a signed copy by JK Rowling

of book two of the Harry Potter series. My nine year old son just finished reading all of the

Harry Potter books inside the last six weeks. So my kids are very, very into Harry Potter.

And they love the movies, they really enjoy them, love the jungle, and score all of it.

HBO just put out a trailer for their new relaunching of Harry Potter. And there are a lot of people

who are super down on this. I gotta say I'm not. I think it looks fine. Here we go.

I told you.

You are a normal boy.

And you're going to start acting like one.

You think you're something special?

There is nothing special about you.

I've always wanted to know about my parents.

Your parents were the kindest, bravest people I ever met.

They were funny and in clever.

And they stood up for what they believed was right.

And the next time I see you, will be in Hogwarts.

I think we can expect great things from you.

Let's see who you are.

Are you really Harry Potter?

I mean, at least they're not doing what some of the other mainline IP is doing here by totally

destroying itself. This all looks fine. This all looks fine.

Okay, so what's the thing everybody's upset about?

So the thing everybody is upset about is Papa, I see, do I believe that's this person's name?

As Severus Snape, because Papa, as you do, is black.

Now, I get it. This annoys people because there's actual physical descriptions in the books of

the characters. Snape, for example, is described as having greasy black hair and a hook nose

and shallow skin. So, you know, like Alan Rickman, which is to play them in the original movies.

And there are, in fact, black characters in the books.

A couple of the students are openly described as black in the books.

I think one's named Blaze. It's a beanie or something.

There's one called Dean Thomas in the books, who are actually black.

I got to say, I can't get supremely worked up over this. I cannot.

Like, there's certain race switching that actually makes a difference because it's integral

to the character. I'm not sure that Snape being white is integral to the character.

I've said this before about other sort of mainstream figures.

Like, I've said before that if you make James Bond a woman, you totally destroy the series.

But if James Bond were to be black, it wouldn't destroy the series in any way.

I kind of feel the same thing here. I don't think it makes pretty much any difference.

So, am I upset? I'm not upset about the Harry Potter of this, about the relaunch Harry Potter.

The same is not true with the Lord of the Rings nonsense that is going on.

So, according to The New York Times, The New York Times is reporting in a video announcement

with the Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson posted on Wednesday.

Stephen Colbert revealed he has been developing a new movie based on early chapters of J.R.

or Tolkien's novels that were largely omitted in Jackson's original trilogy.

So, I guess it's just a bunch of Tom Bommadill. Is that what's happening over here?

I guess that's the idea. They did a video announcement together. Peter Jackson is Stephen Colbert.

Why is Stephen Colbert writing Lord of the Rings? Like, go write something original,

Stephen Colbert is like the, as the purr, why can't find somebody who is even philosophically

aligned in any way with J.R. or Tolkien to write it? It makes a bit of a difference. It really does.

You don't talk about changes that make, like, Stephen Colbert, ideologically, philosophically

holds zero in common with J.R. or Tolkien so far as I'm aware. And yet, I guess because he

likes the property of his famous, they're doing this routine. I mean, first of all, I'm not even

sure why we're doing a sequel to Lord of the Rings. Who is the antagonist in this sequel?

Here they were announcing it. Hello. Hi, Peter. Hey, Stephen. How are you? How are you doing?

Good. Good. Good. I like all your Tolkien stuff on the wall there. That's how things are.

This is just part of the collection. So, I was just explaining to the folks about

the next Tolkien movie after Hunter Gollum and the fact that we've partnered up with

you to develop the script. So, yeah, I'm pretty happy about it.

Why are we part? Why? Why Stephen Colbert? I mean, I guess it's out of work. Maybe he was really

cheap or something, but I cannot understand for the life of me or the life of me. Why,

precisely, Stephen Colbert would be writing a Tolkien movie. This seems like the worst idea ever.

And I believe that the idea of it is Mary and Pippin and Sam, after Frodo is gone,

like they come back years later as my understanding. And they are now going to basically relive.

It's basically like the bucket list. It's like a bunch of old hobbits walking around the shire

and remaking the journey as they get old, which sounds terrible. It is hard for me to imagine

actually a worst idea than this. And again, I love Peter Jackson. I think Lord of the Rings,

the original trilogy is one of the great film achievements of all time. I love it beyond measure.

I know pretty much every line from memory. So as a lover of the original movies,

no, the answer is no on that one from me, dog. Well, folks, I touch on everything from politics

to culture here in the Ben Shapiro show mailbag. So we're going to take some of your questions. Be

sure to send your questions in. The segment is sponsored by our friends over at Pure Talk.

Riley asked, how do we counter the narrative? The conflict with Iran is a strategic failure.

When the mainstream news is mostly slanted against it specifically claims that the administration

expected a Venezuelan style rapid collapse failed to account for the blockade of the straight

of foremose and ignored the resulting economic fallout. I just don't see the evidence of this.

You have people who are like, well, they didn't see what was coming. Did they not? Did they not?

Or 26 days in? And what evidence do we have that they had never gained out the straight of

foremose? Seriously, that they're all shocked by what happened in the straight of foremose?

Now again, I think what happened here is that Iran was a target of opportunity. They took some

contingency plans off the shelf and immediately went to work. And then, you know, things don't

always go according to plan. But this idea that somehow we are strategically under the thumb of

the Iranians because they're harassing shipping in the straight of foremose. Why? Like that was

that was totally unpredictable. What's the deal? David says, hey Ben, do you see it as likely the US

takes over the straight of foremose indefinitely to ensure free travel and to have a strategic

choke point to China and control it? Like we used to have the Panama Canal. That would not be

surprising to me at all. And frankly, that seems to work the cost. You control that strategic choke

point? That seems kind of important to push China off of the Taiwan Strait, which is another

strategic choke point where China has significantly more sway or China can't do much in the straight of

foremose, but they can do a lot in the Taiwan Strait. Daniel says, hey Ben, I'm recruited with the

Tennessee Army National Guard, one of the more common things we come across as recruiters

is young men and women who have been brought over to the country illegally by their parents

and have been here their entire lives had minimum for somebody to process in the military, however,

they need to have a green card. Do you agree that there should be something in place for them to

be able to process it in the military, especially with their situation? Yes, I do. If people are willing

to come here and make sacrifices that I myself did not make, I'm going to be hard pressed to explain

why in fact they should not be allowed to become citizens. Already folks, the show continues for

our members right now. I'll be taking more of your questions, but remember in order to be able to

watch that and hang out with us and be best friends, you have to become a member and use Coach

Shapiro to check out, try two months free on all annual plans, get a link in the description and join us.

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