Ben Shapiro asserts Iran's leadership is decapitated and missile capabilities reduced by 90% following U.S. strikes, while allies like Japan and Germany fail to open the Strait of Hormuz despite receiving billions in aid. He critiques Western media for spreading misinformation regarding the conflict and highlights Democratic electoral vulnerabilities driven by opposition to transgender rights, voter ID laws, and aggressive tax policies under figures like Gavin Newsom. Ultimately, the segment argues that despite low approval ratings, Trump's strategic approach and the Democrats' unpopularity on social issues ensure Republican resilience as they navigate a world-changing war. [Automatically generated summary]
One by one, the leaders of the Islamic Republic are being eliminated.
Generals, security chiefs, regime power brokers, all gone.
The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini-E, is dead on day one.
Okay, fine.
No biggie, right?
The regime had a backup plan.
They proclaimed his son, Moshtaba Khomeini, an impotent, likely gay, half-idiot Moa, as his successor.
Even daddy didn't want that to happen.
Well, the problem is Moshtaba has not been seen in weeks, and he may be in a coma.
Meanwhile, Iran's command structure is shattered.
Their missile capacity has been slashed by 90%.
Whatever is left of the regime is throwing a temper tantrum like a toddler.
So the real question isn't why Iran is losing.
The real question is why so many people in the West are pretending they aren't.
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So back to the game of musical chairs in Iran.
It is now looking like Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, will step in as the leader.
I mean, here he was walking around Tehran just a couple of days ago.
I mean, there he is, right?
Everything's fine.
That was Al-Quds Day or Jerusalem Day.
It was established by the elder Khomeini in 1979 to express support for the Palestinian mission to destroy Israel.
Well, he's competent and cruel, right?
Well, last night, Larajani, who you might remember from such banger tweets as, quote, our leaders have been and still are among the people, but your leaders on Epstein's island.
Well, he is no longer among the people, like any people, because he's dead.
He was killed last night in an Israeli airstrike.
Okay, fine, I guess.
I mean, at least Iran still has Khalamreza Soleimani, the head of the Basij, that's the internal Iranian force dedicated to murdering protesters and quashing dissent.
Well, sorry, strike that.
Last night, Israel killed him also, along with other top members of the Basij.
And now individual basij checkpoints in Tehran are being struck with Israeli suicide drones.
In fact, according to the IDF intelligence head, a man named Major General Shlomi Binder, quote, their command structure is shattered, their capabilities stripped down to the bone.
What you're seeing launched now is whatever scraps they can still push out.
That's their ceiling.
The United States has so severely degraded Iran's missile capabilities that the government has been firing off in rather desultory fashion individual missiles, like a kid whose tantrum is ending but is still kind of sporadically kicking as he tires himself out and goes down for a nap.
On day one of this war, Iran launched 350 missiles.
Today, they are down to launching barely double digits.
Their ballistic missile capacity has been reduced by upward of 90%.
How about drone launches?
Same story.
800 drone launches day one, down to 75 on day 15, and even fewer yesterday.
Their ballistic missile factories have been destroyed.
Their drone factories have been destroyed.
Their nuclear facilities have been destroyed or heavily damaged.
Don't believe me?
Ask Mohammed Saloom, writing for, wait for it, Al Jazeera.
Yep, there's a gigantic piece in Al Jazeera, Qatar's propaganda outlet accurately explaining the toll this war has now taken on Iran.
Remember, Qatar is a half ally to Iran.
That alone should tell you just where things stand for the Iranians.
The Qataris, who play both sides, are now pretty clearly taking America's side.
As Saloom points out in, again, Al Jazeera, quote, the picture is not one of U.S. failure.
It is one of systematic, phased degradation of a threat that previous administrations allowed to grow for four decades.
The campaign has moved through two distinct phases.
The first suppressed Iran's air defenses, decapitated its command and control, and degraded its missile and drone launch infrastructure.
By March 2nd, U.S. Central Command announced local air superiority over Western Iran and Tehran, achieved without the confirmed loss of a single American or Israeli combat aircraft.
The second phase now underway targets Iran's defense industrial base, missile production facilities, dual-use research centers, and the underground complexes where remaining stockpiles are stored.
This is not aimless bombing.
It is a methodical campaign to ensure that what has been destroyed cannot be rebuilt.
What about the Strait of Hormuz?
We keep hearing that, right?
Well, the chances of President Trump allowing these straits to remain permanently closed are zero.
That is not going to happen.
And leaving Iran in total control of the strait just because Iran has a few drones and the capacity to fire them from the shoreline, well, this is, shall we say, a short-term problem.
Soon, the Iranian government will have much larger problems because it does feel as though all of this is a prelude to action by the Iranian people themselves.
President Trump noted that the Iranians will head out into the streets soon when they feel more secure.
Chief rivals to the Iranian people are being individually eliminated.
Right now, the Iranian people have the Americans and the Israelis actually flying air cover for them.
Yes, of course, they're going to have to brave death to take on the regime.
And they did that last time.
But last time they did that, no help was on the way.
And President Trump said, help is on the way.
And then President Trump acted.
What happens next will be in their hands.
All right, it's time to head over to the Daily Wire chat, see what's on your minds.
If you'd like to join our conversation in real time, head on over to dailywire.com.
right, Savvy?
So why do so many people seem to think we are losing?
We'll get to that in a moment.
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So, if America and Israel are winning, why do so many people have the opposite impression?
The drumbeat of lies is absolutely incessant.
Iran is striking at surrounding countries.
They're on the move.
The regime is more solid than ever.
Iranians are rallying around the flag.
Now, if you watch X these days, that might be your takeaway from the joint American-Israeli action in Iran.
Unending whining, caterwalling over a conflict less than three weeks old, in which the United States has suffered by any military historical standard, the lowest casualties in the history of major military conflict and has inflicted more damage by air than any combined air operation in modern military history.
Now, part of the problem, surely, is actual false information.
The New York Times reported just a few days ago, quote, that they had identified over 110 unique AI-generated images and videos from the past two weeks about the war in the Middle East.
The fakes covered every aspect of the fighting.
They falsely depicted screaming Israelis cowering as explosions ripped through Tel Aviv, Iranians mourning their dead, American military vessels bombarded with missiles and torpedoes.
Collectively, they were seen millions of times online through networks like X, TikTok, and Facebook.
The content has become a potent informational weapon for Tehran as it seeks to shake the public's tolerance for war by depicting scenes of devastation and destruction across the region.
Now, of course, all of this does play on the inherent weakness of the West.
A West filled with moral imbeciles with large platforms, like, say, Leigh McGowan, a person who I didn't know, except I guess she was on CNN, and has somehow amassed 2 million Instagram followers for brilliant commentary like this.
How sick and perverse do you have to be to look at Iran, a repressive tyranny that forces women into particular forms of garb and hangs gay people and threatens all of its neighbors and spreads terrorism all over the region and tries to develop nuclear weapons so as to better spread terrorism all over the region and say America is the bad guy.
How perverse or commentators like this over on MS. NOW, the other piece of this that I've found really disturbing in the messaging around the war recently and Eamon, I really want your thoughts on this in particular is some of the language and the description of their opponent, sort of the way they seem to create this image of the Iranians and all of their sort of proxies or allies, the sort of imagery that they conjure up.
And I think that it takes a certain amount of arrogance and, I'm also going to say it, a bit of racism, to constantly talk about people like they are savages.
That is a word that we have heard Heg Seth use.
Talk about people as though they are subhuman, too stupid to engage in a war with the United States, incapable of possibly outmaneuvering us, and then find ourselves in the exact position in which it appears they are consistently outmaneuvering us okay.
First of all, they are not consistently outmaneuvering us.
We are kicking the living hell out of them.
Second of all, if you can't label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which shoots people in the streets by the tens of thousands, or the Basij, or Hezbollah, or Hamas or the Houthis, savages I don't know when you would ever apply that term ever The perverse moral sickness of these folks.
And then, of course, there are people who are too dumb even for MS Now.
So, for example, the extraordinarily dim-witted Joy Reid, who actually compares America to Iran and says that basically America is like Iran.
Our regime is oppressing women, taking away abortion rights, taking away women's rights in like 26 countries, 26 states, some states where they're trying to have the death penalty for having an abortion.
They also oppress women.
They have the highest rate of women who are in STEM careers.
We're kicking women out of the military, out of university.
We're saying that DEI means women can't be hired for high positions in the sciences.
So we're marginally better and we're doing it for Christianity.
For Christianity, would that be allowing people like Joy Reed to have a major platform and continue to be a prominent person talking about how terrible America is in comparison with Iran?
And then, of course, there are dumbasses like Dave Smith, a comedian whose only joke is apparently his understanding of Muslim history.
He put out a statement just a couple of days ago: quote, Islam is such a violent religion.
Every time we murder a bunch of their children, they try to kill some of us.
Disgusting.
I mean, how does Dave Smith think that Islam became a regional power?
Literally, the entire history of Islam is conquest and killing lots of people.
Like that is a reality.
Then, of course, there is gym teacher stipping, Jewelaser theorizing genius, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I have to say, the trajectory of her strange new respect is astonishing.
Everyone on the left recognized, actually, I think quite properly, that she is a double-digit IQ and a conspiratorial nut to boot.
And now, because she doesn't like President Trump, she's given a slot basically every night on CNN or MS Now to rip into the president's strange new respect.
Why would an American president lead his political party into the midterms, waging a full-scale major war completely unprovoked on Iran on behalf of Israel?
And that's the way most Americans see it.
They see this is for Israel, not for America.
Why would an American president do that, which is forcing gas prices to hike right here going into spring break where families are going to be driving out of town, going into summer, declaring and waging a major, full-scale war that seems to have no end in sight, that is not de-escalating.
Okay, Marjorie Taylor Greene was basically thrown out of Congress by President Trump.
Now, listen, there are a lot of people, as it turns out, who are seeing this moment as a moment to take their shot at President Trump.
Now, most of them won't actually cite Trump by name because they're still afraid of him, but they're doing it anyway.
One of those people is Joe Kent.
He's a failed congressional candidate who was repeatedly backed by President Trump in Washington State, and then he was appointed by President Trump to head the National Counterterrorism Center as a deputy of Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.
Well, this morning, Joe Kent quit his job at the National Counterterrorism Center and issued a scathing letter designed to undermine President Trump.
The letter is deeply, deeply conspiratorial.
It states openly that, quote, Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.
Now, that is conspiracy trash.
It's also kind of strange since President Trump has said that it's conspiracy trash.
So apparently, Trump is so deeply, deeply enthralled to those strange, powerful American lobbies.
We're not going to say it, we're not going to say it, that he apparently has been so bamboozled by them that he's still under the impression that he's his own man.
But here's the thing, President Trump is his own man.
He makes his own decisions.
And as per our usual arrangement, Trump's critics are cowards who are simply unwilling to acknowledge that Trump is the one making the call.
But Joe Kent continued, quote, early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pre-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran.
This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory.
This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women.
Again, the idea here seems to be that President Trump is a moron, misled into war by nefarious Israelis and unnamed influential members of the American media.
Don't say it, don't say it.
Again, apparently, President Trump has no agency and no thoughts.
Kent's letter is replete with this conspiratorial idiocy, including, as we just saw, the idea that it was Israel that forced the original Iraq war, an idea totally and utterly unsupportable by any evidence given the fact that the actual prime minister of Israel at the time, Ariel Sharon, opposed the Iraq war.
This stuff is brain rot.
Now, listen, we should all be thankful for Joe Kent's long and honorable military service.
We can also be glad that he's leaving, since his ideology is the same as that of Tucker Carlson, the guy who says that the war is disgusting and evil and who has been busy sexting with the MOAs.
Tucker Carlson calls Kent a personal friend and quote, the bravest man I know.
Frankly, I think that it is a good thing that Kent is not in this position.
We cannot have a director of counterterrorism who is somehow advocating preemptive surrender to the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism in the middle of a war.
Now, the question here is not why Joe Kent would do this.
He's been a longtime devotee of a foreign policy utterly at odds with the peace-through strength foreign policy of President Trump.
President Trump, we played clips on the show, has been advocating for ending the Iranian threat by military force for, I don't know, 47 years.
Joe Kent, by contrast, is a devotee of Ron Paul.
He's also the same guy who suggested that the West was trying to manufacture a war with Russia and backed Vladimir Putin's aggressive play for Ukrainian territory as, quote, very reasonable.
The real question is why Joe Kent was appointed in the first place, and also which other members of the administration are trying to undermine the president from within.
It's not all that hard to tell, to be honest with you.
If you see a pro-isolationist story printed at Politico or Axios or a story from the administration, doubts inside the administration about the president's war, arguments behind closed doors, the president was misinformed.
You can bet money where it comes from.
Spoiler alert, it likely rhymes with Tulsi Gabbard's office.
I would assume that is why Dave Smith is now calling on Tulsi to quit too and throw her own punches at the president in the process.
It is also presumably why Candace Owens has been out there tweeting in support of Joe Kent and suggesting that the president of the United States is, as always, the real problem.
It's not just the grievance right, of course.
Some of these folks, like Pete Budijej, Choo-Choo Train lover, former failed mayor of South Bend, Indiana, but at least he's gay, simply spewing silly lines about how diplomacy with Iran was totally, totally, totally working.
I mean, it wasn't working, but it was totally working, you see.
So the Trump administration argues that they needed to take action to take out Iran's nuclear weapons program and Iran's ballistic missile program.
Because when they came into office, the Biden administration, your administration, had done nothing in four years to stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon, developing ballistic missiles, funding terrorism around the world.
I mean, for one thing, the president assured us that the nuclear program, President Trump assured us, that the nuclear program was, in his words, obliterated just a few months ago.
And let's also remember that in the past, Iran's nuclear program was contained without a shot being fired.
I think President Trump thought he could get a better deal than the Obama administration did.
He failed to get that better deal, and he went off and launched a war without planning.
I mean, I think that we should probably listen to Pete Budig, whose latest tack is hanging out at diners and trying to look more tough and rough so he can run for president.
I mean, he does have longer facial hair than he used to.
Some are, like howdy-duty-looking creepy youth pastor James Tallarico promoting a rube bait about how we're spending too much money in this war.
You see, it's a misdirection of resources.
Listening to Democrats whine about how much money we spend is a brain rot of its own.
By the way, for the record, we are spending about a billion dollars a day on this war.
We spend in America every single day for the rest of time at least $20 billion every day, forever at the federal level.
Here is James Tallarico saying, the war is just too costly.
Oh, yeah, by the way, we should have universal child care or something.
Now, again, if America were to just do that, that would really be dumb because then Iran would be in basic permanent control of this vital choke point in global trade.
So what's the thing that comes next?
The Wall Street Journal laid out a few options this morning.
They wrote, quote, retired Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, who has commanded a carrier strike group, recently laid out what a Hormuz operation might look like.
First, continue to degrade to a militarily manageable risk the missiles, mines, drones, unmanned surface combatants that could threaten U.S. forces and tankers.
Second, maintain an unblinking eye that looks 50 miles on either side of the strait and 100 miles back.
Third, keep four or eight aircraft persistently overhead during convoy operations, equipped with advanced precision kill weapon systems, a cheap rocket, 25,000 bucks, that is extremely effective against Shahad drones.
Fourth, have to arm helos ready to attack small boats that emerge.
Fifth, deploy 10 to 14 Aegis destroyers whose air defenses make them the perfect escort ship.
These surface combatants first need to be brought into place.
Allies could join later.
So that is one possibility.
It's time-consuming.
It's expensive, obviously.
Or, alternatively, President Trump could seize Kharg Island, as we have been talking about.
Kharg Island is at Coral Island, located about 15 miles off the coast of Iran, and literally 90% of all Iranian oil capacity moves through Kharg Island.
If we were to seize it, it would cut off Iran's export capacity entirely.
And that would likely either force the regime to negotiate an end to the war, or it would lead to sort of a final Iranian conflagration that might end in the fall of the regime.
Because when you don't got no money and when you don't got no oil going out, and when the United States is sitting on your entire oil supply, things start to get pretty rough.
So, what is President Trump actually going to do here?
Well, he's certainly not going to tell the members of the press.
One of my favorite games that President Trump plays is somebody asks him a specific question on what he's about to do, and then he just rips on them.
It's kind of funny.
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Will it be necessary to use even a limited ground force to secure whatever nuclear material remains in Iran as part of that threat?
President Trump has been calling on our allies from Europe to Asia to help open up the strait.
These allies freely acknowledge that freedom of transit through the strait is, in fact, a key strategic interest for not only the United States, but for everybody.
It's just that they are too cowardly to do anything about it.
You know, as usual, as per our usual arrangement, they bring the empty talk, we bring the hardware.
As of now, Japan has announced they're not going to send ships to help us, even though 93% of all of their oil transits the Strait of Hormuz.
South Korea, same story, even though 70 to 75% of their oil comes through that waterway.
Britain has been offering us a few minesweeper drones.
France wants stability first, which is to say they want a partial surrender to the Iranians.
Australia, they're doing nothing.
China, of course, is on the other side.
They're aligned with Iran.
They're calling for an end to the war.
All this, despite the fact that an oil shock harms all of those countries significantly more than it harms the United States.
As the Wall Street Journal reports today, borrowing costs are surging across the continent.
Government debt in the UK and France is at or near the highest share of GDP in at least six decades.
So what are the Europeans actually going to do?
What are they fighting hard for?
They're fighting for green energy.
I know, I know.
Oh, the Europeans.
They are clinging to their fatuous emissions trading systems.
Those are regulations on carbon emissions.
As their prices continue to climb through the ceiling.
Here is Ursula von der Leyen, who is the head of the European Commission.
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Without ETS, we would now consume 100 billion cubic meters more gas, again, making us more vulnerable, more dependent, and weaker.
So, that would be a yes on the solar panels, and that would be a no on joining America to end the terrorist regime in Iran.
So, let's talk a little bit about our vaunted allies.
We've heard over and over and over again that our allies are deeply important, that we shouldn't abandon our allies, that our allies deserve our support.
I've advocated for this.
I've been a huge advocate for that idea, not because I deeply love the French or the Germans or the Brits, but because the world is a chaotic place, and we would rather have countries on our side than aligning with our enemies.
But the time has come to discuss what makes a good ally.
A good ally in foreign policy isn't just a country we pay to stay out of the sway of the enemy.
A good ally should do four things.
First, our best allies should align with us morally.
They should share our general values and orientation toward the world.
We have strategic partners, and these strategic partners may change over time and not share our values very much, but our best allies ought to stand shoulder to shoulder with us in our civilizational outlook.
Second, our allies should minimize the help required from us by building up their own resources.
Mooching allies generally are not good allies.
Now, again, this doesn't mean that our allies won't occasionally need big infusions of help.
That's been true forever, or that they can always stand up to the predations of their enemies without our help.
It does mean they owe us an obligation to help themselves.
Third, when we call on our allies, they ought to answer the call.
After all, if we're a good ally, we'd do the same.
That doesn't mean, of course, that every country with which we are allied must pre-commit to joining every war that we join.
But when the strategic and moral interests align, backing out is not just cowardice, it is a form of sedition.
Fourth, and finally, our allies should engage in intelligence sharing and sharing of military capability.
This doesn't mean countries give up their own independent capacity, but our best allies should be in the air with us, in the water with us, on the ground with us.
Our combined power should be stronger than the power we have alone.
That, of course, is the purpose of an alliance.
So, here is the question: Are our key allies doing this?
So far, the only thing we've seen our allies saying is that they are on our side morally.
But when it comes time to actually enforce those morals, then they just disappear into the wind.
Here's the vice president of the European Commission, Kahakalas.
unidentified
This is not Europe's war, but Europe's interests are directly at stake.
Okay, so if it's at stake, then why are you guys not doing anything about it?
And then, of course, there's German Chancellor Friedrich Mares, who freely acknowledges that America's action against Iran is justified, but then says, We will not participate in ensuring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz by military means.
The war in the Middle East is not a matter for NATO.
Therefore, Germany will also not become involved militarily.
So, what are you good for?
Here's that tower of strength, Emmanuel Macron, on X. Quote: I have just spoken with Iranian President Masood Pazeshkin.
I called on him to put an immediate end to the unacceptable attacks Iran is carrying out against countries in the region, whether directly or through proxies, including in Lebanon and Iraq.
I reminded him that France is acting within a strictly defensive framework aimed at protecting its interests, its regional partners, and freedom of navigation, and that it is unacceptable for our country to be targeted.
So, you might want to do something.
Then, of course, there is the excrable Kira Starmer of the UK, who says, Opening the Straits is very difficult.
It's very difficult, which is why we're not going to do anything.
We will just let our entire country be eaten by the interests of radical Islamists, but we certainly won't do anything to open the Straits of Hormuz.
Here is Kira Starmer, a man who looks like a thumb with glasses.
Numerous countries have told me they're on the way.
Some are very enthusiastic about it, and some aren't.
Some are countries that we've helped for many, many years.
We've protected them from horrible outside sources, and they weren't that enthusiastic.
And the level of enthusiasm matters to me.
We have some countries where we have 45,000 soldiers, great soldiers, protecting them from harm's way.
And we have done a great job.
And when we want to know, do you have any minesweepers?
Well, would rather not get involved, sir.
They said, you mean for 40 years we're protecting you and you don't want to get involved in something that is very minor, very few shots going to be taken because they don't have many shots left.
But they said, we'd rather not get involved.
I just want the fake news media and everybody else to remember that that was said.
Okay, listen, we're constantly hearing from the chattering class and the podcastian contingent that foreign aid to Israel is expensive.
That's a fair enough argument on its own.
I've been arguing for literally decades that Israel ought to wean itself from American aid.
And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the same people all these folks hate, said clearly to the president last year he wanted to do that.
President Trump said, hey, wait a second.
By the way, the reason President Trump said, hey, wait a second, is because it is military sharing that is the basis for that aid.
I mean, let's be real about the initiation of American aid to Israel.
It began because the American military-industrial complex was concerned that Israel is going to build its own fighter jet, the La V, that would be in direct competition with the F-16.
But let's also point out that for $3.8 billion in American aid, all of which goes back into American defense production, because Israel has to spend all of that with American defense companies.
The United States has access not just to top-flight Israeli military technology, like, for example, their very cool laser shooting down rocket system, but they are an ally that actually joins in our fights at the highest possible level.
Israel has actually been flying far more authorities, far more than the United States has above Iran during this mission.
Israel has absorbed dozens of missiles coming the other way.
Israel has provided the intelligence that led to the killing of Iran's top echelon and done the killing itself in many cases.
Israel requires zero U.S. bases and zero U.S. troops, historically speaking.
Here's Secretary of War Pete Hegseth explaining our relationship with Israel.
Now, let's contrast that with some of our other allies.
This idea that we only spend military aid on Israel is nonsense.
It is not true.
We spend between $5.5 and $6 billion on military bases in Japan.
We station 54,000 troops there.
In Germany, we spend $4 to $5 billion a year, and we station 36,000 troops there.
South Korea, $3.5 to $4 billion per year with 23,000 troops there.
Qatar, $1 to $1.5 billion a year and 8,000 troops.
Turkey, $300,050 million with $1,700 troops.
And Saudi Arabia, $500 million to a billion with 2,500 troops.
None of those costs include surges or special operations.
So, question, quick question.
How many of those countries that we are spending literally billions of dollars a year on have provided us direct forward support for our operations?
Zero.
Some of them throughout this operation have actually tried to undermine us.
That would include Turkey and at the beginning, Qatar.
These countries live off of our protection.
They have for decades.
Not financial support or military aid for an independent force buildup.
Our direct protection.
We have a tripwire force in South Korea so that we will immediately be drawn into any conflicts with North Korea so they don't cross that border.
We station troops in Japan to prevent Chinese threat against Japan.
Our German bases are a holdover from the Cold War, where we worried about a Soviet invasion.
So we stationed troops there for literally half a century.
Meanwhile, those countries, when we want their help, go totally quiet.
And instead, they spend their money building up their exorbitant regulatory and welfare structures.
So here is the deal.
We don't need different allies.
We need our allies to be better.
President Trump was always right to force NATO countries to pay up for their own defense.
But if NATO countries want America to help them out in times of common need, they need to step up as well when one of the world's chief shipping lanes is closed by an internationally recognized terrorist regime.
We can talk all we want about how we shouldn't alienate our allies saying silly things about invading Greenland or tariffing the Germans.
And I agree with a lot of that.
But if our allies aren't going to back our play when we need them, then we should treat them as what they are, strategic partners, not ironclad allies that make a call on our resources at their whim and then abandon us when we ask for a hand.
Meanwhile, domestically, we keep hearing that Republicans are in serious, super duper electoral trouble, that President Trump is suffering low approval ratings, that the public isn't behind the war in Iran, that Democrats are about to swamp Republicans all over the country.
And maybe that's true.
But there are some counter signals.
One, Trump's approval rating right now is actually higher at this point in his presidency than Bush or Obama.
Second, why are Republicans running almost dead even with Democrats in the generic congressional ballot?
Like really dead even.
While the legacy media have been focused on the Republicans these days, which makes sense given that Republicans have a trifecta in government, Democrats are about as popular as some forms of cancer.
Or maybe the Democrats are having trouble because they're busy complaining about voter ID, a policy that has the support of eight in 10 Americans in every single poll.
And yet, Democrats are very much against voter ID.
Again, I still can't come up with why Democrats are complaining about voter ID other than they kind of like voter fraud.
Like, I need an alternative explanation that makes sense to me.
I'd be happy to find it if you want to give it to me, Democrats.
Here's Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz making the usual Democratic complaint, suggesting apparently people of minority ethnicity cannot figure out how to get a driver's license or something.
This is about one thing, ensuring that it is much harder for people who are unlikely to go to the polls and vote for Republicans, and that making it much harder for them to cast their ballot.
The top four states by overall tax burden in the United States are all blue.
Hawaii, New York, Vermont, and California at 11% overall tax burden.
Texas is number 40.
Florida is number 45.
Or maybe Democrats are still unpopular because they are keeping the Department of Homeland Security shut down, like even in the middle of an Iranian global terror threat.
I guess in order to make some point about how they don't like ICE or something.
Well, here's House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries trying to explain.
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We've repeatedly made clear, Democrats in both the House and the Senate that we should fund the TSA, fund Coast Guard, fund CISA, fund FEMA, fund every other aspect of the Department of Homeland Security that doesn't have to do with ICE or Donald Trump and Republicans' toxic deportation machine that the American people are rejecting.
And for whatever the reason, Republicans have decided that they would rather shut down the whole thing than actually deal with a situation where we get ICE under control.
So we're in the middle of a war with Iran where they are activating terrorist cells and the Democrats are like, we have to keep DHS shut because we don't like ICE.
No, Democrats are, as Bill Maher says, stupidly counterintuitive.
Here was Bill the other night with Jerry O'Connell, the actor.
Listen, Democrats may be banking on Republicans to lose the 2026 election all on their own.
Maybe Republicans will.
But even if Democrats gain power, they won't keep it for long if they keep pursuing stupidly counterintuitive policies.
So while President Trump is fighting a world-changing war that legitimately will change the face of the map for generations to come, Democrats continue to pursue their white whale, making sure that there are male appendages in the female locker rooms.
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