Ep. 2394 - THANKS, DEMOCRATS! Unsafe Airports, Unsafe Streets

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When you get to the airport next week and 171 million of us will get on a plane this spring, a new record, will you be safe? When you look at the southern border or when you read about Shard and Gorman, 18 years old shot in the head while going out for a walk with friends to see the northern lights, do you feel safe? We're going to spend today's show answering that question. I want to take you through the evidence of the way a prosecutor would because there is an answer and it is worse than what they are telling you on CNN. This is the Ben Shapiro show. Now, you may be listening to or watching this show right now at an airport waiting in line. Probably for hours. If you are, that is because Democrats decided to shut down funding for the Department of Homeland Security in order to punish immigration and customs enforcement ICE, which is a part of DHS for enforcing the law. It doesn't matter that ICE's legal authority has not changed for decades. It doesn't matter that underpresent and Trump. They're just doing their job for the first time in decades. DHS must be closed down because ICE is doing their job. That's the thing. Democrats don't want to enforce the border. If they get the chance, they'll return to Biden era open borders as soon as possible. Let's start with this horrible story about Shard and Gorman, an 18 year old student at Loyola University in Chicago. She was murdered by a masked man while she was walking in Rogers Park last Thursday. According to CBS News, quote, "the shooting happened early last Thursday as Gorman, who was 18, your old was walking with her friends near the pier at Toby Prince Beach to see the northern lights." Prosecutors said, as Gorman and her friends were talking toward the lighthouse shortly after 1am, Gorman told her friends she saw someone hiding behind the lighthouse when Medina came out from behind the lighthouse. Gorman and her friends ran away and then Medina shot Gorman in the back. Okay, so terrible story. The police quickly arrested a suspect when Jose Medina, as it turns out, the alleged murderer was a Venezuelan national in the United States illegally. According to The New York Times, the Department of Homeland Security said on Sunday that Mr. Medina was released into the country under the Biden administration in May 2023 after coming into contact with border patrol agents. I know. Gigantic shock, right? Federal official said Mr. Medina was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting in Chicago about one month later in June 2023 and then released. So you should be asking yourself, if you get arrested for shoplifting and you are an illegal immigrant, why are you still here? The answer, of course, is that Chicago is a sanctuary city. That means that the city and state of Illinois prevent local officials from cooperating with federal law enforcement. That is why Medina was free to allegedly commit a cold-blooded murder. You see, if local law enforcement had notified ICE that they had arrested an illegal immigrant and then held him until ICE arrived, Gorman would probably still be alive. Republicans up to and including the president have pointed out the simple facts and are 10 crews correctly pointed out, quote, "shared in Gorman's killer" was an illegal alien who should never have been in our country. Joe Biden's open border policies and Governor Pritzker's refusal to accept that President Trump's help are the reasons why she is not with us today. Hey, well, that's right. And here was President Trump being questioned by daily wires at Marguerite Olehan about the situation. It's devastating. These people were let in by Biden. We're getting them out. We're getting them out fast. That's why ICE is so important to doing such a good job. This animal. I saw the whole thing last night. They gave me a briefing. Came in through Joe Biden with his open-door policy and his borders are a Kamala who never saw the border. Democrats, however, are still making excuses. Here was a Chicago alderman in Maria Haddon saying that actually it might have been Gorman's fault. You see, when you get shot in the back of the head by an illegal immigrant who was hiding while you were out seeing the Northern Lights, it's possible that it's your fault for startling that illegal immigrant. It's sort of like walking into an endangered species arena at the zoo or something. It's your fault if something bad happens to you. And they go out on the pier. They walk around so that the kids were out doing normal things people do in the neighborhood. And it sounds like this might have been a wrong place, wrong time running into a person who had a gun. They might have startled this person at the end of the pier unintentionally. Other Democrats, of course, are claiming that this is all happening because we incarcerate too many criminals. This is the big democratic move. It's been true for decades. The idea is that criminality happens because too many criminals are in jail. It's sort of like the argument that if you kill too many terrorists, you're just creating new terrorists, which is weird because when you kill terrorists, then they're dead. And the same thing is true of people who are in jail. When they're in jail, you know what they're not doing. They're not on the streets shooting people. And yet this is the typical Democratic take in his idiotic. There was Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson back in November 2025. Well, I feel like it's a great way actually to drive violence down again. Keeping criminals in jail is a great way for them not to commit crimes against people on the streets because they're in jail. That particular theory of crime that we have to stop crime by freeing criminals has cost the city of Chicago, both lives and cash. The free press reports this morning Illinois has already paid to one billion dollars to ex-gang members who stop crime in Chicago. Spoiler alert, it doesn't work all that great. Here is the free press quote. While the mayor is supportive of community violence intervention, a key member of his public safety team said that CVI is a revolving door for gang members. Some of these guys who are collecting money through CVI are still committing crimes. The public safety team employee said it's a huge problem. Governor JB Prisker, who has been losing weight in expectation. I assume of a presidential run, which again is misbegotten in the extreme. His office issued a statement quote, "Our thoughts are with the family, friends, and Loyola University community grieving the senseless murder of Sheridan Gorman. Our crime has no place in our streets. We expect the alleged purpose-writer to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law. The Trump administration needs to stop politicizing heinous tragedies and instead focus on real solutions, like reinstating federal funds to prevent violence that support our public safety efforts." That's. raaaazee. That's crazy. Policizing heinous tragedies instead of focusing on real solutions, it is not politicization to point to the specific policy that could have stopped this murder in the first place. In fact, it is playing politics to ignore that policy for political reasons. But Democrats are addicted to playing politics on illegal immigration. They've decided that illegal immigrants are the finest among us and deserve our undying sympathy and that we ought to defund the agency that houses ICE in order to facilitate illegal immigration. Representative Eric Swalwell, who is running for governor of California. I don't know why. I mean, man, Eric Swalwell. Here he was yesterday saying he wants to abolish ICE. He's running far to the left. Here we go. "I get lost and if Democrats take control of the House, I hope we strip out your funding from the root to the STEM because I can't speak for us, Michael. I just want to abolish ICE." Okay. The reason that he's saying he wants to abolish ICE is not because he actually wants to abolish ICE. He wishes to win a Democratic primary in the state of California. He wishes to become the Democratic nominee and he feels like the more radical he is, the more he can volet himself to the top of the pile. in just one second. I'm going to get into our cultural arbiters playing offense on behalf of illegal immigrants, you know, like Miss Rachel. First, I've been working with PureTalk for six years now. I wanted to work with wireless company that actually shares my values. PureTalk is veteran led to helping veterans is huge to them. I think that's awesome, obviously. 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To PureTalk, that's puretalk.com/repearautoswitch to my wireless company and America's wireless company. PureTalk. Okay, Savvy, we are going to check in with our members, folks, as you know. If you're a member, you can ask me questions live during the show. If you're not a member, you just have to sit there and take it. So you should probably become a member. Savvy, what are they saying? The people. The people have spoken. Paul wants to know how we're Clinton, Bush, Obama. So successful with deportations. Is it purely partisan politics? It's just pulling things down. So they weren't. The answer is that when it came to Bill Clinton, there was an enormous amount of illegal immigration. George W. Bush, serious illegal immigration, and the biggest, of course, was Obama. There was serious illegal immigration under Barack Obama. It really exploded under Joe Biden. The counts that you are seeing when it says that, for example, Obama deported more people than Trump. That's because they are counting turnaways of the border. There are almost no turnaways of the border these days because President Trump has made it clear that if you show up at the border, you will be turned away. So those numbers are kind of wildly inflated from past presidents. And yes, of course, things are more partisan now. Nobody on the Democratic side of the aisle in the '90s was saying that we needed to abolish ICE. That was just not a thing that was being said. If you go back and you watch 1992, Bill Clinton's acceptance speech at the DNC, he was a moderate on illegal immigration by today's standards. So back to our cultural arboners. They have been playing offent on behalf of illegal immigration. Mr. Rachel, that is the radically political children's toast who spends her days playing an overgrown child and also standing for terrorist groups like Hamas. While she is now sounded off on ICE's supposed evils, she headed down to an ICE facility in Texas to lecture Americans on why we must allow illegal immigration to run unchecked across the country. You know, for the kids. Do you really miss your school and your friends? Very much. Don't you be there to be happy. It's all good then. If you're good at all clothes to live this. You want to stay healthy and cheer anymore. Don't be here anymore. You miss good here. Oh, I'm so sorry. A lot of people want to try to help. I wouldn't let her go to the smelling in the air. You have a real gift for smelling. You're so smart. When I just look from here, my stomach is already. That is Mr. Rachel programming to your five year old child. Yes, as long as she cosplays as a little girl as an adult, you know, can I blues clues style. Then it's fine for her to be as politically left-wing as she wants to be. Popular TV shows too are pulling out all the stops. The pit in HBO medical drama that I actually enjoy with my wife because she's a doctor so she likes to analyze it. It recently featured this particular scene in which ICE raids in ER. Hold on, she needs to sleep. It's only take a minute. We're leaving. Hey, man, you're hurting her. Oh! Jesus Christ, what's going on now? Robbie? Oh, my God. You can't do this. We have children. What are you doing? The child is arriving to take away nearly one of the greats and then nurse tries to obstruct the arrest of the nurse. I know. I know. I know. No! We got to go. No! Don't say anything. You don't have to say anything to the camera. Make you say anything. We'll get you in a tour. I promise we'll get to work. And that is the lead doctor telling the nurse not to talk to ICE and I promise we'll get you out. Because this is how it goes. Just people being randomly arrested in ERs and obstructing the working of ERs because ICE, of course, is totally evil. That is the key. ICE is a bunch of monsters. They're even arresting ER nurses. Not like the ER nurses who are out in the streets, you know, actively obstructing things. Like ER nurses in the ER. Obviously just to be particularly cruel. Democrats must be high on their own supply at this point. They are just drinking from this cultural wealth. They think that shutting down the Department of Homeland Security is good politics. At least, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jaffrey seems to think so. He is saying that it's good to shut down the DHS funding because, of course, the GOP wants to agree to keep ICE away from polling sites. Now, I have a question. Why are illegal immigrants at polling sites? I mean, if ICE is there, like if ICE shows up at a polling site and I show up at a polling site, I'm not worried about ICE because I am not any legal immigrants. It seems to me that actually making sure illegal immigrants do not show up at polling sites is not a horrible use of ICE, actually. Anyway, here is House Minority Leader Hakeem Jaffrey's saying we must withdraw taxpayer funding from the DHS. But one of those demands is keep ICE out of sensitive locations. We have defined that as schools, houses of worship, hospitals, and polling sites. We want an explicit prohibition that ICE can go nowhere near any polling sites in the United States of America. Why? I don't even understand that one. I sort of get schools because the idea is that you have a lot of kids, illegal immigrants are going to schools and so you don't want them to have to worry about mom and dad getting pulled out of line and then thrown out of the country. I kind of get it, like on a humanitarian level. The polling sites I really don't get. In any case, the partial DHS shutdown has had the effect not just of defunding ICE but of defunding, of course, the TSA, Transportation Security Administration. This has led to these gigantic lines around the country at airports in response. The administration has said that they will deploy ICE officers to man the TSA lines because you see ICE actually has some leftover funding from the last round of funding. There's Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy explaining on Sunday. Democrats want to see long lines at airports as leverage President Trump's trying to take that leverage away and not make the American people suffer. So TSA agents are law enforcement. They know how to pat people down. They know how to run the X-ray machines because they are, again, under Homeland Security with TSA. So if we can bring in other assets and tools to assist TSA to get rid of these lines, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense and the president's looking around every corner to make sure the American people don't suffer during the shutdown. Now the Democrats are saying that deploying ICE to help out and again, it's not going to be ICE that's actually scanning your items that go through the machine. It's ICE that's facilitating the movement of the lines. You know how when you go to the airport, there are members of TSA who are directing you which way to go. ICE can do that too and they won't be masked at the time. Democrats say this is not going to help the wait times or as Cory Booker being as manipulative as he could possibly be as far as usual arrangement. He's taking that agency that is recklessly out of control and bringing it to our air case. Under the line, somehow this is going to help deal with the law and lines that you created in the first place. Well, I mean, they will help because as it turns out, even CNN is saying that ICE is helping with TSA wait times. Finally, we can take a deep breath here. The numbers have dropped off. The lines are getting shorter. I think the average wait time now is under 40 minutes. So if you have a flight to catch today, it's a good time to come to Hartfield Jacks International. So it turns out actually that it's kind of working. Well, meanwhile, some Republicans tried to construct a work around for this whole situation yesterday. Senators John Kennedy of Louisiana and Ted Cruz of Texas tried to push a partial government refund for TSA alone. The Democrats have offered to open up everything but ICE. Ted and I said, OK, let's accept their offer. And then at the same time, we would offer a bill for reconciliation where we don't need any democratic votes to do whatever we wanted to do with ICE. And that way we're out of the shutdown and DHS is back open. We submitted that. Senator Perfoon submitted that to President Trump. As his right, he said no. No deals with the Democrats. Now again, I assume here that President Trump doesn't want to deal with the Democrats because he believes that they basically own the shutdown, which is probably true. According to Punchbowl, President Trump threatened he would slam Republicans if they left it down for recess coming up. According to Punchbowl, quote, "The President wants Republicans to stay in DC and keep fighting with Democrats over DHS funding and the Save America Act, the GOP's voter ID and proof of citizenship bill." So this begs the question of whether President Trump is right on the politics. There's a new CBS news you guv'pull. It shows only 31% of Americans believe Democrats are right to cause the partial government shutdown. 36% believe the Democratic position is not worth it. So President Trump is in total. wrong to browby democrats with their own peculiar shutdown position. Meanwhile in better news dhs does have a new secretary so is no longer christie know him of course that person is markway mullen who is confirmed yesterday now we can only hope he actually has a fully funded department to actually run. Now speaking of the situation in the country small business is the beating heart of the american economy we all know this we are a mid-size to small business there 36.2 million small businesses across the country and 70% of them say they need additional capital at least once a year to ever run a business is a constant necessity sometimes you just have cash low issues sometimes you need a little bit of an advanced you get to the next pay period big banks have been tightening underwriting they've been proving fewer loans than ever there's a lot of bureaucracy tons of red tape endless paperwork it can turn that whole process into a marathon sometimes it takes months and that's too late so if you want bank rates without the bank delays you need to check out cardiff dot c o slash Shapiro from to 500 grand in same day funding you need to check them out there the largest privately held small business lender in america they've already funded over $12 billion since 2004 $12 billion again as a business owner you're constantly sort of running from behind is drinking from a fire hose and so if you got caught up short you really need everything to move quickly and sometimes banks can't move that quickly very often they're trying to lock out small businesses but cardiff has the key big banks may not want to approve your business loan cardiff does if you've been in business for at least a year if you're pulling in 20 grand a month in revenue apply now for up to $500,000 in same day business funding at cardiff dot c o slash Shapiro again at's cardiff dot c o slash Shapiro real growth fast funding cardiff borrow better that's cardiff dot c o slash Shapiro here's the topic most people avoid planning for the inevitable death comes for all of us you know a dark thought but that doesn't mean that you have to leave chaos behind our sponsor trust and wills online estate planning helps you get your affairs in order if you got kids you own a home or you're caring for aging parents it's 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and will dot com slash Shapiro okay savvy so we're checking in with the facts fam for more questions what what are they asking so Antonio asks the Kato Institute is arguing against master portations based on analysis that illegal immigrants cost less than the contribute to the economy Daniel D martino and Manhattan institute of release to study showing the opposite so what methodologies lead to these findings how do we accurately estimate the cost of illegal immigration right so very often institutes like Kato institute will not take into account the cost of for example children of illegal immigrants so let's say that you're an illegal immigrant you come here and you have a couple of kids and now your kids are are going to be going to public school they're not illegal immigrants themselves or maybe they are maybe their dreamers right meaning they came here as minors through the fault of their own but they're illegal immigrants and now we have to pay for their schooling and their health care and all the rest so it depends how holistically you actually measure taxpayer costs if you holistically measure taxpayer costs then overall illegal immigration does cost Americans more than they receive from whatever taxes people are paying in into the system and that this has also been suggested by the center for immigration studies in microchorium already folks speaking of our airports scary footage out of LaGuardia on Sunday night according to the associate of press and air candidate jet carrying more than 70 passengers collided with a fire truck while landing at New York's LaGuardia airport late on Sunday killing the pilot and co pilot injuring several other people according to officials the impact severed the cockpit hurled a flight attendant who is still secured to her seat far from the crash site according to her daughter the flight attendant actually survived the fire truck was crossing the tarmac just before midnight after being given permission to check on another plane that had a boarded its own take off before the collision you can hear an air traffic controller on airport communications telling the fire truck to stop here is the CCTV footage scary stuff here. You can see the plane is landed and then here comes the fire truck and the plane just plows directly into the fire truck terrible stuff right there. Oh yeah, yeah, it's really really bad and here you'll hear the audio of the air traffic controller who admits that he must stop. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. Yeah, we got stuff that pronged us for that man that was I wasn't get to watch. Yeah, I know I was here. I tried to reach out and I stopped and we were dealing with an emergency earlier. I'm not stuck. Oh, oh, terrible. The plane was essentially totaled at least the front of the plane was totaled. You can see that basically the cockpit is gone. Both pilots were apparently killed. This in our air traffic control requires upgrades, radical upgrades. This has been a priority for a long time. Transportation Secretary Duffy suggested this a while ago. Many of you have reported that we need more money for air traffic control. We are modernizing our system. But we can't fully modernize it until the Congress gives us additional money. It's not a part of an issue. Both Democrats and Republicans agree. But they have to have the will to finish the funding. I'm not saying that this crash would have been prevented if we had all the equipment deployed. So yeah, again, he is right about this, but there is an alternative priority here. What if we privatize both TSA and air traffic control? There are a lot of other countries that actually do this, including ones that are to our left. Canada, the UK and part Australia, Germany, Switzerland. That would be a smart move. It would cost us a lot less money. You'd have the airlines actually pay for TSA essentially. They have them control their own security into their airlines. It would also prevent the government from being able to shut down air travel whenever politicians fight. And by the way, it would create massive incentive for better service and more reliable service from the airlines. If the airlines want you to be able to move more quickly in and out, then they will facilitate that it would also separate the FAA from service providers. So if you have regulatory oversight of private agencies that is better than the same people who are making the rules also implementing those rules. You create incentive for people to actually follow the law because instead of people working for the FAA creating the regulations and then failing and then the liability lies with the agency that created the regulation, meaning the taxpayer, it lies with the airlines. That would make a lot more sense. But again, one of the biggest problems, the big government is that it is sclerotic, it is inefficient. And if you take that back to the TSA and to DHS, it ends up with the American public significantly less safe. And just a second, we're going to get into the idiotic socialists who traveled to Cuba as a PR stunt truly. The most ridiculous thing that I have seen at least this week. 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One of the things that has happened is an enormous amount of self deportations. A lot of people who see that the administration is not going to allow them to overstate their visa simply leaving and going home. And I think that will solve part of the problem. But the idea of us mass deporting 15 to 20 million people, which is probably the number of illegal immigrants in the country, that I think is a non-starter in just realistic political terms. And so we need to tranche this. We need to make priorities. And then sort of like tier one is criminals, tier two are people who are net draws on the welfare system. And then you get to tier three, tier four, tier five. All right. Meanwhile, speaking of people who truly wish to undermine America's interests at home and abroad, you so called Nuestra America convoy has ended. I know it's yeah. Nuestra America, that's a group associated with code pink, which of course is a radical left wing partially foreign funded group that brought rich and famous left wingers to Cuba to yell about how terrible America is while enjoying drinks on the beach and some unerun feelings of moral superiority. Now, as we've talked about Cuba is a communist hellhole. It has been for decades. There's an average annual salary there of $156, not per day, not per month, per year, $156. But Nuestra America didn't come to call for the liberation of the island nation. They came to cover how terrible it is their employment on America and to cry America's evil. And of course, do a little bit of poverty tourism here, where are some communist friends enjoying a nice outing amongst the proletariat? You can see them on one of these little buses here. And they're singing and having a good time. And then they're going to go take pictures of some of the poor people. Exciting stuff. They're all wearing half of them are wearing masks, by the way. Because you have to make sure they're masked up. Good people. Don't worry. Good little communists. The best kind of communists are the ones who don't have to live in the communist countries. Genius level stuff here. Ah yes, poverty tourism. Well, according to Fox News, the far left group code pink sponsored flights to the communist led island. And the group was joined by Isra Hersey, the daughter of representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and left wing twitch streamer Hassan Piker, an ally of democratic socialist at New York City mayor, Zoran Mamdani. Well, here's how it went. So Isra Hersey, that would be representative Ilhan Omar's kid. She goes to Barnard showed up there. She engaged in some light poverty tourism and stayed at a ritzy five star hotel. Her group then joined a concert led by kneecap. That's the Irish man. Most famous for screaming about the evils of Israel. Here's some footage of that magical concert. Again, people just, you know, starving just off camera. Well, I'm glad they're having a good time. That's the important thing. Is the rich people flying in from abroad to celebrate amidst the dire poverty? Meanwhile, Cuba is in a state of rolling blackout. The poverty tourist hotel. It is lit everywhere else. Ain't no power. This is Cuba and there is no electricity anywhere because there's no oil. There's no energy. And this is what it looks like. Except that hotel because the five star hotel. That's it. Well, at least the communist, you know, from abroad or having a good time. Well, defending herself, Hersey tweeted, quote, yes, I am in Cuba. People are here from across the globe to express solidarity with the Cuban people. People who are standing against the oppressive blockade exacerbated by the Trump administration. I'm honored to be here. I'm honored to make history and I'd move our up to all. Yes, she's making so much history. People generations from now will remember the spoiled brat child of the luckiest immigrants in history going to communist nations to decry the nation that took them in. So to get this straight, this person is the daughter of an immigrant from one of the most impoverished and terrible parts of planet earth. Her mother was elected to Congress. She goes to one of the most prestigious and expensive colleges in America, tuition plus room and board over at Barnard is $90,000 per year per year. I mean, just to do some brief like mental math right there. It would take a lot of years of Cuban salary to pay for that $90,000 per year, like a lot, like 70 years or something. She stays at five star hotels in Cuba. And according to Isra Hersey, America is the bad guy. Like mother-like daughter, of course. El Han Omar is one of America's greatest detractors. She is a seething cauldron of sneering vocal grind who sympathizes with terrorists and commies all over the globe. She put out a statement quote, I am incredibly proud of Isra. I can't really do her voice. It's like down here. And everyone who made the trip to Cuba, it took tons of aid to make sure the people of Cuba knew that there are so many people across the world who stand in solidarity with them. Cuba has always sent aids to country, has sent, always sent aid to countries in need and has trained thousands of physicians across the world, including my childhood physician. In reality, Cuba tried to export revolutions during the 1960s and 1970s to large swaths of Africa and joined with some of the worst most repressive regimes on planet earth in doing so. El Han Omar says, "Isra Hersey is more than just my daughter. She is a brilliant young leader who has always worked hard to advocate for a more just world. She inspires me and so many people with her leadership and dedication. I am forever fortunate to have her as my daughter, but I am even more fortunate to know her as the unflinching justice warrior for justice she is." While joining her, she was nepotbaby socialist and dogs yapping fascinista, Hassan Piker. That is a man whose love for communism is matched only by his taste for Cartier jewelry. One day soon, perhaps he'll finally get his life stream and end up in a thrupple with Mojdab Khmeri, but this week he was in Cuba where he was explaining that he had to stay in a five-star hotel guys by law. But here's the thing. The island people is out there. They love having no power. So while he was relegated to the air conditioned hotel, they out there, they were fine. Everything was going great. I mean, there's like rolling blackouts of take place throughout the day, every day, all around the country, right? 11 million people. But today's a beautiful day out here. It's like 75 degrees, sunny. People are partying. People are partying in the streets. People are partying. In the effing streets. They're having such a great time, you know, like not having anything to eat. According to us on Piker, revolutionary and numerical curers are being withheld because of our sanctions on Cuba. Piker knows this because he plays a doctor on TV or one time he watched an actor playing a doctor on TV or he just put on his smart people, $1,500 glasses. That's it. Yes, he is wearing $1,500 glasses. He's made me so damn man. Americans would rather die than admit a foreign enemy has any benefit. Exactly. They do not want, they do not want a comprehend. Like real, they just, if it goes against their priors, if it goes against their priors, they just go, no, that's not real. I don't believe it. I don't want to believe it. It's unbelievable. It's a lie. It's an experience that I think every American should have. It will change you. When Ben Rhodes told me before I went to Cuba that I was going to be very sad. He was somewhat right. I landed and I could not believe how beautiful this island was. I could not believe how beautiful the people were. That was my first reaction. I was like, wow, I'm not a big nature guy, but this is one of the coolest places I've ever been to in my life. And then it was an emotional roller coaster turned into deep sadness. You know, you arrive in Havana and you start seeing the trash. It can't be collected because there's not enough oil and gas. There's not enough oil to operate the trash trucks. Communism. It's doing great, but he's blaming America. I love that he is hanging out with Ben Rhodes. Again, remember Hassan Piker, who is one of the worst people in the commentary at a person who routinely sympathizes with terrorists like all over the world. That guy is hanging out with Zorn Mamdani and he's doing interviews with all the Democratic politicians. It's pretty incredible. Now, by the way, you heard him mention right there a cure, right? Supposedly it is a. And Alzheimer's working solution. Well, not really. It's actually an ongoing trial in Canada. It is not being blocked because of US embargo. The original study itself actually says more research is necessary. But here's the important thing. The important thing is that Hassan Piker believes he is doing something virtuous and so do the rest of these clowns. And so they perform sensual massages on the planet's worst dictators from Cuba to Iran to terrorist groups all in the name of their magical principles. And then they say their critics are the problem. If you ever want to hear somebody self-pitying beyond all belief, listen to this one. Here we go. Liberals get mad. Right wingers get mad. It's like a lightning rod for some of the most like deeply unwell people. It's very, very frustrating. It's very strange. But in any case, one of the things that I'm going to say is that I think a lot of people just simply don't do things. Right? So when they see someone doing things, it triggers something in their minds where they go, well, I'm not doing anything. And that makes me feel somewhat, look, maybe a little immoral that I'm not doing anything. So I have to find a way to disparage people who are trying to do their best. You know, Hassan Piker is doing things. He's doing things by taking a flight over to Cuba, taking pictures of all the poor people and then proclaiming that he is virtuous. Is there any way that we can just, you know, give him a one-way flight to Cuba? And he just, you know, stay there. Spring is a natural reset point. If you've been putting off cleaning up the messier parts of your business, now would be the time to make the change. Streamlining your communications is one of the quickest and easiest upgrades you can make. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo. It's spelled Q-U-O. The smarter way to run your business communications. Now, here is the reality. 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Well, speaking of America's enemies, the war in Iran continues. It appears that Saudi Arabia and UAE may be getting closer to direct involvement against Iran, according to the Wall Street Journal. Quo, US allies in the Persian Gulf are inching toward joining the fight against Iran, getting tougher, following persistent attacks that have disrupted their economies and risk giving Tehran a long-term leverage over the straight up Hormuz. Now all that makes perfect sense because our Gulf allies do not really want an Iran that survives and continues to prey on the oil industry in the Persian Gulf. That is not something they're interested in. And in early withdrawal or Iran still being in dominant position in the straight up Hormuz means they can cut off oil supply at any given moment. Now President Trump for his part seems to be pursuing a dual track. Negotiations with the possibility of even harsher action. Yesterday President Trump suggested that there were in fact negotiations with Iran, happening he then detailed his Iran's yield terms. Well, we will see what Iran actually agrees to. He says that Iran actually reached out to him because they are worried about what's about to happen. There's President Trump yesterday. If this happens and I can't guarantee it but I think it's going to, my life is a deal. That's all I do is deals. My whole life. Now I think this is something that's going to happen and why wouldn't it happen? So tomorrow morning sometime, their time, we were expected to blow up their largest electric generating plants that cost over $10 billion to build. It's a very good one. There was no dearth of money. And one shot, it's gone. It collapses. Why would they want that? So they called, I didn't call, they called, they want to make a deal. Now President Trump has not said who it is that we are talking to over there. Some contemporaneous reports do suggest that back channels are open. President Trump will not disclose who Steve Whitkopf, our negotiator, is actually talking with on the other side. We wiped out the leadership phase one, phase two, and largely phase three. But we're dealing with the man who I believe is the most respected and the leader. You know, it's a little tough. They've wiped out everybody. That doesn't have to be leader? No, not the Supreme Leader. We don't know much about that. Well nobody's ever, nobody heard of the second Supreme Leader of the Sun. The party's the right goal. Nobody, we have not heard from the Sun. Everyone said, well, you'll see a statement made, but we have it now. We don't know if it's living. But the people that seem to be running it and they seem that based on really fact because things they've said have taken place. I don't want them to be killed. Okay, I don't want them to be killed. So who is it that Trump could be talking to, considering that the current titular leader is probably either dead or an icon? According to the Jerusalem Post, the answer is that it is a person who is the parliament speaker and long time IRGC higher up in Muhammad Bakhir Kali Baf. Kali Baf is a hardliner, of course, not a lot of not hardliners at the top of the Iranian government as per our usual arrangement. As political reports, quoting one Ali Vyas senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, quote, "Kali Baf is a quintessential insider, ambitious and pragmatic, and fundamentally committed to the preservation of Iran's Islamist order. It makes him an unlikely candidate to offer Washington any meaningful concessions, even if he were inclined to test the boundaries, Iran's military establishment and the broader security elite would almost certainly constrain him." For his part, Kali Baf is denying any contact. He put out a tweet saying, "Our people demand the complete and humiliating punishment of the aggressors. All officials stand firmly behind their leader until the school is achieved. No negotiations with America have taken place. Fake news is intended to manipulate financial and oil markets and to escape the quagmire in which America and Israel are trapped." And, of course, on Sunday, Kali Baf also threatened the United States on exit in addition to military bases. Those financial institutions that fund the U.S. military budget are considered legitimate targets, because Treasury bonds are tainted with the blood of Iranians. If you proceed to purchase them, you are, in fact, attacking your own assets in primary headquarters. We are monitoring your investment, court folios. The Iranian Foreign Minister is denying outright any negotiations, so President Trump laughed at them yesterday. "Pulling the truth when it comes to productive conversations, Daniel, they're going to have to get themselves better public relations people. We have that very, very strong talks. We'll see where they lead. We have major points of agreement. I would say almost all points of agreement. Perhaps that hasn't been conveyed. The communication, as you know, has been blown to pieces. They're unable to talk to each other." So, what's really going on? Well, three things. First, negotiations probably are taking place. After all, it does make some sense to keep the phone line open in case Iran decides to give up the ghost and to a delsy Rodriguez situation over in Iran, like Venezuela. Second, even the possibility of an off-ramp talks down the oil prices. So yesterday, oil prices fell by over 13 percent. Brent crude futures had fallen around 17 bucks or 15 percent down below $100. U.S. Western media Texas had fallen 13 bucks about 13.5 percent. Third, this all does by time for some more resources to reach the region. The Wall Street Journal reported last night, quote, "thousands of U.S. Marines are slated to arrive in the Middle East on Friday, according to two U.S. officials. The day President Trump has set as the deadline for Iran to reopen the straight-up for moves. The Japan-based amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, the amphibious landing dock USS New Orleans, and roughly 2200 Marines from the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit will cross into U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. forces in the Middle East. On Friday, the officials said, "It would take another few days for the unit to get to the straight-of-form moves. The Pentagon has also ordered another Marine unit to sent com. The California-based 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, aboard the USS Boxer amphibious ready group, the unit will depart in a few weeks. It won't arrive in sent-com for a few weeks after that." So you may recall that President Trump negotiated with Iran for weeks. While American aircraft carriers made their way to the Middle East just a few weeks ago, so this could be a similar situation. Meanwhile, the grievance party, having a very rough time of it, Senator Chuck Schumer, who has constantly decried the evils of the Iranian regime, he is having a very tough time answering whether it is good or not that President Trump went after Iran. He just cannot answer the question on Morning Joe. "Is it a good thing that Iran, and I think you would agree with me, at the center of terrorism in the world since 1979, is it good that their military infrastructure is being degraded in the degree that it is?" Yes or no? "You can't because it's a premature question. What is going to happen in the next several months?" No, no, I can ask that question. Well, you can't say that right. No, no, no. I can't. So you have a military side that, but I can show you my chart, but I think I threw it away. You have the military side. You have the political side. I'm simply asking on the military side, is it good? Where does it go whether we agree with going in or not? Is it good that Iran's military infrastructure has been seriously going to be good? And I have to tell you, Joe, first, you can't. What's going to happen three months from now? Is it worth it? What's going to happen? Will the world economy collapse? Will something happen even worse? It's incredible that he's unable to just say the obvious, which is yes, it is good, that we have destroyed an enormous amount of Iran's military arsenal. And what happens next we don't know, but that at least is good. Meanwhile, Joe Kent, who you remember is the former national director for the Counterterrorism Center, the one who quit amidst a full scale of federal investigation into leaking, he is still making the rounds and he's pretending to be a principal critic of the administration, President Trump smacked him down yesterday. He was a man that I met at Dover. He came in his wife with his skill. He remarried fairly quickly. His wife was killed and I felt badly for him. He ran it for Congress, he lost. He ran for Congress again and he lost. I said, "You know, he's a guy, nice guy, seems like a very nice guy. I bet him he was pretty heartbroken, pretty." But I said, "You know, it's a shame. He ran for Congress twice. Call him up, give him a job in the White House. Smart." They gave a job in the White House and this is what he does to me, you know? Well, in terms of president Trump probably should not be quite as sympathetic to people who beg him for a job. Turns out that Kent was almost certainly using his slot as director of national center for counterterrorism to leak information about Charlie Crook's murder to Candace Owens. When Candace said she had a source inside the federal intelligence apparatus, I think it would be hard to believe it was not Joe Kent. So Andrew Colbert made clear over at TPSA. So Andrew is a high ranking member over at TPSA, very close friends with Charlie. After Charlie was killed, there's a lot of speculation about foreign involvement driven largely by Candace. And Andrew Colbert actually gave texts that he had had with Charlie Crook, the re-text that ended up in Candace Owens' hands. And what he says is that he had sent those texts to Joe Kent, and then magically they ended up in the hands of Candace Owens. Well, that's weird. I'm not sure why we want the national center for counterterrorism head to be on a first text basis with a person who is acting in totally psychotic ways, but all right. Behind the scenes, we have given everything we know to give every single piece of information. This was one of them. I was told I could trust Joe Kent. I provided the screen grabs to Joe Kent. And I don't know what happened to them at that point. Okay. I just want to make that very clear. Actually Joe did message me and suggest that I make those screen grabs public. I declined because those were shared privately. I didn't want to be reckless with them in the public. There could be innocent people on that group chat that would then be harmed. So I declined. But then fast forward another week or two, and they were made public. So that's what I know. Is that Joe suggested that they be made public. I declined. Then they were made public. Well, then sound like he is innocent of being a leaker. Mark Levin had tense on to ask about the alleged leaks and it didn't go amazing for Joe Kent. He gave you text messages, confidentially. Hold on. Let me just get the question. You can dispute it. Text message is anybody. But I have to explain it to the public. If you want. All right. So they got they got what is it? Why don't you want to answer this? You only want to let me set up the question. He said that he gave you text messages from Charlie Kirk, all this discussion about these rallies and donors and so forth that you called him and you said, make it public. He said, no, I'm not comfortable doing that. And then the next thing he knows, Candace Owens has it and she makes it public. And she's off to the races just like you and Tucker in the red. Did that happen or not? Did you give it to Candace Owens? Yes or no? I did not give anything to Candace Owens. No. Well, this is good to know. So you've never leaked. You didn't give anything to Candace Owens. I have a much higher regard for you now. That's the truth. I do not believe Joe Kent. And we'll see what the results of the investigation are. Alrighty, folks. Coming up, we'll be taking your questions. Remember, we can't do that unless you remember. If you want to be a member and hang out with us behind the paywall, we can all be best friends and again, we'll go to ice cupades together. 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