The Ben Shapiro Show - The Brainrot Right Has LOST Its Mind
Aired: 2026-03-25
Duration: 01:04:48


=== Brain Rot on the Right (02:39) ===

[00:11:17]  Do you believe that Charlie Kirk was murdered by a conspiracy of malignant Israelis?
[00:11:23]  Do you believe that Islamic tyrannies do an incredible job of building clean and robust cities?
[00:11:28]  Do you think that America ought to emulate Russia?
[00:11:31]  If so, do I have some podcast for you?
[00:11:33]  You see, we now live in a world of panic, hysteria, and conspiratorial musing.
[00:11:38]  In short, we live increasingly in an online insane asylum.
[00:11:42]  And there are a lot of folks who make bank as the wardens.
[00:11:45]  Would you like to escape the asylum?
[00:11:47]  Just stick with me.
[00:11:48]  This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
[00:11:55]  Well, why don't we start with some facts?
[00:11:56]  Because we're about to wade into a tide of people who don't know or don't care about the facts a lot.
[00:12:01]  Well, here are the results of a brand new CBS poll among Republicans.
[00:12:07]  Okay?
[00:12:08]  Here's the question.
[00:12:09]  One, should America change Iran's leaders to ones that are pro-U.S. Republicans, 80% yes.
[00:12:16]  80%.
[00:12:18]  Hey, how about this one?
[00:12:20]  Should America make sure Iran's people are safe and free?
[00:12:23]  90% of Republicans say yes.
[00:12:26]  By the way, so do 76% of independents and 74% of Democrats.
[00:12:31]  How important is it?
[00:12:32]  They say important.
[00:12:34]  Is it unacceptable to end the conflict with the current regime in power?
[00:12:38]  Well, overall, Americans say that it is not acceptable to leave the current regime in power by a margin of 53 to 47.
[00:12:47]  71% of Republicans agree, so do 51% of independents.
[00:12:51]  How about whether people approve of military action against Iran?
[00:12:56]  84% of Republicans say yes, compared to 16% who disapprove.
[00:13:01]  And as it turns out, young Republicans are way more hawkish than they have been portrayed.
[00:13:06]  There's a brand new poll from Sean Cooperman Research, and it finds that among conservatives age 30 and under, 61% support the war compared with 24% who oppose.
[00:13:15]  35% of young conservatives believe that this operation benefits both Israel and the United States, and another 31% say it primarily serves America's interests.
[00:13:25]  Only one in five say it serves only Israel's interests.
[00:13:27]  And nearly seven in 10 are sympathetic to the importance of America's relationship with Israel.
[00:13:33]  And yet and yet, there is an increasingly large segment of the right that is now brain rotted.
[00:13:39]  This is not all critics of the war, obviously.
[00:13:41]  There are plenty of legit concerns about the war in Iran.
[00:13:43]  How will it end?
[00:13:44]  Will there be lasting economic impact?
[00:13:46]  What comes after?
[00:13:48]  But the brain rot crew aren't asking those questions.
[00:13:50]  They're asking different questions.
[00:13:52]  Questions like, do the Jews control Donald Trump's brain?

=== Joe Kent's Suspicious Claims (06:46) ===

[00:13:57]  And also, did Israelis conspire to kill Charlie Kirk?
[00:14:00]  And also, should we be more like Qatar?
[00:14:04]  The Brain Rot crew are those who are advocating a weaker American role in the world.
[00:14:08]  They're obsessed with conspiratorial views about America.
[00:14:11]  And of course, about Israel and about Jews and about a lot of other stuff, including maybe the moon landing.
[00:14:16]  Well, the Brain Rot right hero of the day is Joe Kent.
[00:14:19]  You'll remember him.
[00:14:20]  He resigned recently from his position as director of the National Center for Counterterrorism, supposedly over his opposition to the war.
[00:14:27]  The real reason it seems that he actually quit is because he was under investigation for leaking classified information.
[00:14:33]  Now, there is well-founded suspicion.
[00:14:35]  It was Kent who was providing information to Candace Owens about Charlie Kirk's murder.
[00:14:40]  As we have discussed, Andrew Colvett of TPUSA said yesterday he actually sent screenshots of conversations he had with Charlie Kirk to Joe Kent.
[00:14:48]  And Joe Kent had then asked Colvett to release those same texts publicly.
[00:14:52]  And Colvett said no.
[00:14:54]  And then the same texts were released mysteriously by the most crazy conspiracist of our time, Candace Owens.
[00:15:00]  Here was Andrew Colvett explaining this just the other day.
[00:15:03]  The actual fact of the matter is that behind the scenes, we have given everything we know to give, every single piece of information.
[00:15:10]  This was one of them.
[00:15:11]  I was told I could trust Joe Kent.
[00:15:13]  I provided the screen grabs to Joe Kent.
[00:15:16]  And I don't know what happened to them at that point.
[00:15:19]  Okay, I just want to make that very clear.
[00:15:22]  Eventually, Joe did message me and suggest that I make those screen grabs public.
[00:15:29]  I declined because those were shared privately.
[00:15:32]  I didn't want to be reckless with them in the public.
[00:15:35]  There could be innocent people on that group chat that would then be harmed.
[00:15:38]  So I declined.
[00:15:40]  But then, fast forward another week or two, and they were made public.
[00:15:44]  So that's what I know is that Joe suggested that they be made public.
[00:15:48]  I declined.
[00:15:49]  Then they were made public.
[00:15:51]  Can I 100% categorically say that he leaked them?
[00:15:55]  No.
[00:15:56]  But those are the facts.
[00:15:57]  Maybe somebody on his team.
[00:15:59]  Maybe they got passed around.
[00:16:00]  Maybe somebody else leaked them.
[00:16:02]  But those are the facts of the matter.
[00:16:05]  Now, I'll be real about this.
[00:16:07]  I do not believe that Joe Kent didn't leak those texts to Candace Owens.
[00:16:11]  After all, it is Candace Owens who routinely claims that she had inside intelligence sources in the government.
[00:16:17]  And then back in October 2025, right, shortly after Charlie's murder, she actually chided the FBI's Kash Patel for excluding Joe Kent from intelligence briefings.
[00:16:24]  Here she was back then.
[00:16:26]  Right.
[00:16:27]  This is the headline that came out of the Daily Mail.
[00:16:29]  Kash Patel shuts down Charlie Kirk foreign intelligence probe in an explosive feud with Trump's counter-terror chief.
[00:16:38]  It really makes you wonder what Kash Patel is hiding.
[00:16:43]  There's absolutely no reason for Kash Patel to say, only I'm the person that's supposed to be looking into this.
[00:16:48]  It makes no sense.
[00:16:48]  If he is interested in solving Charlie Kirk's murder, then Kash Patel would be working with everyone.
[00:16:57]  Now, call me suspicious, but I do not think that Candace Owens and Joe Kent are strangers.
[00:17:02]  It would be similarly shocking if Joe Kent was not leaking to Tucker Carlson, who is one of his friends.
[00:17:07]  And also, by the way, his first stop after leaving the government, just a few days before, you'll recall, Carlson claimed he had inside information from the intelligence community about being targeted by the CIA.
[00:17:17]  Hmm.
[00:17:18]  Where could that have come from?
[00:17:19]  So many mysteries, so many enigmas.
[00:17:21]  Well, so here's the thing about Joe Kent.
[00:17:23]  He's not just allegedly a serial leaker.
[00:17:25]  He's kind of a nut.
[00:17:26]  He's not just a nut because he says that Israel bamboozled President Trump into attacking Iran.
[00:17:31]  And then just for good measure, went to blame Israel for ISIS in Syria and also the original Gulf War and possibly the Korean War and maybe the War of 1812.
[00:17:41]  He is a nut because he truly believes that Charlie Kirk may not have been shot by Tyler Robinson.
[00:17:46]  That's the gay furry lover who absolutely 100% shot Charlie Kirk.
[00:17:50]  It was Tyler Robinson's DNA that was found reportedly on a towel around the murder weapon, the rifle.
[00:17:56]  A screwdriver recovered on the roof of the crime scene, apparently, had his DNA on it.
[00:18:01]  His palm prints were reportedly found on the roof as well.
[00:18:04]  He texted his furry boyfriend that he was involved with the shooting.
[00:18:07]  He apparently confessed it to his parents.
[00:18:09]  The evidence here is stronger than the evidence in the OJ case by a mile.
[00:18:14]  Nonetheless, yesterday, Joe Kent went all the way and then publicly be clowned himself.
[00:18:18]  In an interview with Michael Schellenberger at Substack Page, Kent said he would actually testify on behalf of Kirk's alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson.
[00:18:28]  Yet you heard me right.
[00:18:29]  He said that he would actually testify if called to do so on behalf of Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin.
[00:18:36]  Quote, the FBI was pretty forceful in saying we couldn't investigate further, he told public.
[00:18:40]  I saw no action being taken.
[00:18:42]  Ken said he knew he might be called as a witness before he made his statements that a foreign nexus may have been involved in Kirk's assassination.
[00:18:49]  I was definitely warned of that over and over again, said Kent.
[00:18:52]  If I end up having to play that role, then I'll do it.
[00:18:54]  It's not something I'm seeking.
[00:18:56]  When he was told that that testimony might help Tyler Robinson's defense, Ken said, quote, then honestly, so be it.
[00:19:02]  If it gets us to the truth, that's obviously the risk I'm taking.
[00:19:06]  Kent went on to describe the things he found suspicious.
[00:19:08]  Quote, the stakes are high.
[00:19:09]  Israel really, really, really wanted this war.
[00:19:11]  They believe it's existential.
[00:19:13]  The lone gunman part always struck me as a bit odd, said Kent.
[00:19:15]  I've been in combat.
[00:19:16]  I've done a lot of shooting.
[00:19:17]  The shot Robinson took, if that was indeed how Charlie was killed, I don't think it's an easy shot.
[00:19:24]  It's kind of an easy shot.
[00:19:26]  And also, I'm just going to point out that that is indeed how Charlie was killed.
[00:19:32]  Robinson, he says, I know videos of him messing around with guns, but he didn't seem very familiar with that gun from the stuff I've read that the FBI still has under lock and key.
[00:19:40]  Ken said, I'm not casting doubt on whether Tyler Robinson is innocent or guilty.
[00:19:43]  I'm saying we were not allowed to examine any foreign links to the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
[00:19:48]  This is bat bleep lunacy, of course.
[00:19:52]  In fact, it's actually quite evil because if you are providing evidence to try to get the alleged murder of Charlie Kirk off the hook in a case where he clearly killed Charlie Kirk, in my opinion, well, that's terrible and evil.
[00:20:06]  There is zero evidence to support Kent's contentions.
[00:20:09]  He has not provided any.
[00:20:11]  He's just asking questions.
[00:20:13]  Or according to the queen of the asylum, Candace Owens, there's always the possibility that Kent thinks he's preventing the, quote, hostile takeover of Charlie's legacy or some such nonsense.
[00:20:22]  It's so stupid, it's kind of hard to follow.
[00:20:24]  But here was Candace Owens, Joe Kent's friend, earlier this week.
[00:20:28]  I told you the truth based off of my discussions with Charlie about where his headspace was at when it came to Israel.
[00:20:35]  I didn't need Joe Kent for that.
[00:20:36]  I didn't even know Joe Kent at all.
[00:20:38]  I'd never had a single communication with Joe Kent until after Charlie Kirk was assassinated.

=== Lies About Muslim Terrorists (12:36) ===

[00:20:43]  That is the honest to God truth.
[00:20:44]  I didn't know this man at all.
[00:20:46]  And so this whole idea that everyone's colluding, colluding to tell the truth, Megan Kelly told the truth.
[00:20:51]  Tara Carlson told the truth.
[00:20:53]  And you guys hate us for that.
[00:20:56]  They told the truth about what?
[00:20:59]  About what?
[00:21:00]  Actually, I'm pretty sure that Megan Kelly will not tell the truth about Candace Owens.
[00:21:04]  That's been my major problem throughout.
[00:21:06]  And Tucker Carlson, man, the alp just got to his brain.
[00:21:10]  And here's the thing.
[00:21:10]  It's not just Joe Kent who is the problem here.
[00:21:13]  Of course.
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[00:22:37]  All righty.
[00:22:37]  So as you know, we have a program here on the show where our members get to ask me questions during the show.
[00:22:42]  That could be you if you choose to be our friend.
[00:22:44]  So become a member right now.
[00:22:46]  Producer Savvy, have we questions from our members?
[00:22:48]  We do have questions.
[00:22:49]  So I know you don't prescribe intentions to people and you can't see inside their heads, but what do you think Ken is actually thinking?
[00:22:55]  Why are the brain rot people doing this?
[00:22:56]  Is this all electoral motivation?
[00:22:58]  I mean, I will get to that in a minute why I think they are doing this, but I do think that they have a worldview.
[00:23:02]  That worldview is incredibly skeptical of America and American systems.
[00:23:05]  Believes that pretty much all the systems under which we live are run by conspiratorial elites.
[00:23:12]  And so it is an attempt to undermine all of our institutions and also, you know, to make a little bank on the side, which brings us to Ayat Tucker Carlson.
[00:23:20]  He delighted the America Last contingent earlier this week with some comments about what an awful, terrible place our country is.
[00:23:27]  Here is apparently what that sounded like.
[00:23:29]  This is a little bit old, a couple months old.
[00:23:32]  There's not a single Western city that's thriving.
[00:23:37]  And they're all degrading in exactly the same way.
[00:23:40]  Is a lot of it just a moral decay?
[00:23:42]  Or is it actually true for every city?
[00:23:44]  It's a lot of things, but it's self-hatred.
[00:23:46]  Every city.
[00:23:46]  Crazy.
[00:23:47]  Every European city, every American city, it's just why people lose their will to live, their will to pass on their culture, their values, their religion to their children, their will to have children.
[00:23:56]  It's all gone.
[00:23:57]  You go to the Gulf and it's incredible to be in a place that has pride in itself, that believes in its religion and culture, that thinks we're on to something.
[00:24:07]  And this is great.
[00:24:08]  Look at what we're doing.
[00:24:09]  We're really proud of this.
[00:24:10]  Those people are happy.
[00:24:12]  They're welcoming of others.
[00:24:13]  They're tolerant of diversity.
[00:24:16]  Right.
[00:24:16]  Tolerant of diversity.
[00:24:17]  There's none of that here.
[00:24:18]  Are you kidding?
[00:24:20]  If you believe that the countries of the Middle East are more tolerant of diversity than the West, you're out of your mind.
[00:24:26]  Also, the reason that some parts of certain cities are really nice is because they are run by tyrants.
[00:24:31]  And so those parts of those cities are really nice.
[00:24:33]  And then a lot of the rest of the country is not so nice.
[00:24:35]  And if you think that the really, really nice parts of the country are populated by 18-year-olds from the outskirts, you're out of your mind.
[00:24:43]  This is all nonsense.
[00:24:45]  Carlson went on to explain in the same interview that actually the only reason that there are Muslim extremists is because all of these people are from places degraded by the colonial powers.
[00:24:57]  And you notice like in ISIS or Al-Qaeda or like the Muslim extremists, they're all from like collapsed, pathetic societies dominated by colonial powers.
[00:25:10]  They've been degraded and that's why they're so angry.
[00:25:14]  Right.
[00:25:14]  So there's something about being degraded that turns you into a violent nutcase extremist.
[00:25:19]  You're seeing a lot of violent nutcase extremists in our country.
[00:25:21]  Not surprising because the country is being degraded.
[00:25:23]  Correct.
[00:25:24]  So in a country with self-confidence, people are tolerant and open-minded and happy.
[00:25:29]  And in a country where people are told to hate themselves, they start to hate others.
[00:25:34]  Yes, there are no people associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in, say, Saudi Arabia.
[00:25:38]  They don't have a problem at all with that.
[00:25:39]  There are no terrorists who are at all associated with any of the countries he's talking about in the Middle East.
[00:25:44]  I just have a question.
[00:25:44]  How is his worldview literally any different from Ilhan Omar's?
[00:25:48]  It is identical.
[00:25:49]  Apparently, terrorism springs from Western evils, always and forever.
[00:25:54]  He's just howard Zin in a new flannel shirt.
[00:25:59]  By the way, I'm just going to ask, which colonial power is responsible for Iran sending multiple assassins to kill President Trump?
[00:26:05]  Is that President Trump who's responsible for that?
[00:26:08]  According to Tucker from last summer, by the way, you'll remember that he actually said we should not only kill the Ayatollah if they tried to kill Trump, we should actually nuke Iran if they tried to kill Trump.
[00:26:18]  Iran is trying to murder Donald Trump and has hired hitmen.
[00:26:22]  Do I know the name of the hitmen?
[00:26:24]  No, I'm sorry.
[00:26:24]  And I don't think we do either because we would apprehend them if we knew their names.
[00:26:27]  Then why don't you take it seriously enough to support killing the Ayatollah in response to protect our president?
[00:26:34]  But you don't.
[00:26:35]  This doesn't even make any sense.
[00:26:37]  And you're calling me an isolationist.
[00:26:39]  If I believed that that was true, I would support military action against the government of Iran.
[00:26:46]  So apparently he doesn't believe that it's true, even though that talking point totally backfired on him.
[00:26:51]  In fact, you know, Tucker has spent a while here saying that Sharia law, maybe it's not that bad.
[00:26:56]  Maybe it's not so bad.
[00:26:59]  Sharia law is bad, Seth.
[00:27:01]  I don't know if you've heard that.
[00:27:02]  It's bad.
[00:27:02]  It's worse than what's happening in New York and Detroit.
[00:27:05]  It's just bad.
[00:27:07]  I don't know why.
[00:27:08]  It's just like years of brainwashing.
[00:27:11]  Just like, I'm not Muslim.
[00:27:12]  I'm not for Sharia law.
[00:27:13]  On the other hand, compared to what?
[00:27:15]  Compared to Baltimore?
[00:27:16]  And you can tell when you go to a place like Abu Dhabi or Riyadh, like, oh, man, I hope we don't ever wind up with a society like this with a rape rate of zero where you leave your keys in your Lamborghini and don't ever worry about it being stolen.
[00:27:29]  And, you know, if people want to get wasted, they do it at home.
[00:27:32]  You know what I mean?
[00:27:33]  Yeah.
[00:27:34]  Boy, I hope we don't wind up with that.
[00:27:39]  I mean, I'm just going to point out that openly practicing Christianity in Riyadh is kind of a problem.
[00:27:45]  And as for his suggestion that Sharia law is actually better than what happens in American cities, I really urge him to go to a Sharia law country, like, say, Pakistan or Afghanistan and try out his lifestyle there.
[00:27:59]  All of this is patently insane, of course.
[00:28:00]  It's also strange, given that Tucker, long before he was on the Elp, had this to say about radical Islam.
[00:28:07]  Pew research poll findings that one of every four Muslim Americans younger than 30 believes suicide bombing in the defense of Islam is justifiable.
[00:28:15]  For instance, do you believe that Arabs carried out the 9-11 attacks?
[00:28:18]  Only 40% believe Arabs carried them out.
[00:28:20]  Do they think the Jews did?
[00:28:21]  I get that decent Muslim Americans feel under attack.
[00:28:24]  They feel like they're being unfairly portrayed as terrorists.
[00:28:26]  I understand all that.
[00:28:27]  But at some point, you have to say, this really is a real problem, and it's discrediting all of us.
[00:28:31]  And until we take it seriously, it's going to continue, no?
[00:28:33]  We can debate the details here, but I think it's important to acknowledge a baseline, and that is that there have been an awful lot of attacks where actual people died in the United States and in Europe, committed by people saying really clearly we're acting in the name of Islam.
[00:28:45]  Hasidic Jews.
[00:28:46]  I mean, they're a set-apart community, speak a different language, not assimilated.
[00:28:50]  But I don't see a lot of terror attacks committed by those groups.
[00:28:53]  Often hear Americans say, I have said, including last night, is that assimilation is the problem.
[00:28:58]  These people are not assimilated.
[00:28:59]  And yet you look around, and there are actually a number of groups in our society and yours who aren't assimilated.
[00:29:04]  Hasidic Jews live apart.
[00:29:06]  The Amish live apart.
[00:29:07]  They pose no threat at all to the country they live in.
[00:29:10]  They love the country.
[00:29:11]  Why is this group different?
[00:29:13]  With his new perspective, it's no surprise to find that Tucker has some newfound friends.
[00:29:16]  Shadi Hamid, the radical left columnist for the Washington Post, says that Democrats would now vote for Tucker over Josh Shapiro.
[00:29:23]  I wonder why.
[00:29:24]  It's a big mystery again.
[00:29:25]  So many mysteries.
[00:29:26]  Quote, if it was Shapiro versus Tucker, I could imagine a significant number of young progressives, Arabs and Muslims, sitting it out or actually voting for Tucker.
[00:29:34]  Again, Hassan Piker, Tucker Carlson, totally indistinguishable on foreign policy at this point.
[00:29:38]  Now, to be fair to Tucker, I don't want to just single out his days talking about the wonders of Islam.
[00:29:44]  He's been spending years talking about the wonders of China and the glories of Russia as well.
[00:29:49]  You all remember Tucker's magic visit to a Russian grocery store in which blue blood McSilversmoon over here discovered the incredible magic of shopping carts.
[00:29:57]  So a long-standing feature, maybe the longest-standing feature of Cold War propaganda in the West was the Soviet grocery store.
[00:30:07]  No products, no choices, shoddily made things.
[00:30:13]  And it wasn't actually propaganda.
[00:30:14]  It was real.
[00:30:15]  And you can look up the pictures on the internet if you want.
[00:30:17]  So we thought it would be interesting to take a look at a contemporary modern day 2024 Russian grocery store two years into sanctions.
[00:30:26]  Here we go.
[00:30:29]  All right.
[00:30:30]  Here we go.
[00:30:31]  So I guess you put in 10 rubles here and you get it back.
[00:30:36]  When you put the cart back.
[00:30:39]  So it's free, but there's an incentive to return it and not just bring it to your homeless encampment.
[00:30:46]  Okay.
[00:30:46]  This is the grocery cart escalator.
[00:30:50]  This is designed, I'm figuring this out now, where the wheels don't move.
[00:30:55]  They lock on the grocery cart escalator.
[00:30:57]  Look, Ma, no hands.
[00:31:06]  I'm never going to get over it.
[00:31:07]  I'm never going to get over that clip.
[00:31:08]  I'm just not.
[00:31:09]  Then he started sniffing the bread all weird.
[00:31:12]  I mean, motherfucker head on over to an Aldis are a target.
[00:31:17]  Like seriously, my dude.
[00:31:19]  But of course, Tucker.
[00:31:23]  But of course, Tucker on Russia.
[00:31:26]  And the real reason, apparently, that we are all anti-Russia is not because Russia is an expansionist power with designs on everything that is east of the Atlantic Ocean.
[00:31:36]  No, the reason that we are against Russia is apparently, according to Tucker Carlson, because it is white and Christian, and we all hate white Christian people, which is why we hate Russia.
[00:31:45]  My main instinct is that the lesson of World War II for some people was white Christian countries are a threat to the world.
[00:31:51]  100%, yes.
[00:31:53]  And that's just not a fact, actually, at all.
[00:31:56]  It's why they hate Russia.
[00:31:57]  It's probably going to be the only majority white Christian country in the world soon.
[00:32:01]  And they hate it.
[00:32:01]  That is why they hate it, by the way.
[00:32:03]  Let's just stop lying about it.
[00:32:04]  That's why they hate it.
[00:32:06]  I'm just going to note here again, Russia is about 70% ethnic Russian and declining super duper duper fast because the actual fertility rate among ethnic Russian women, particularly in urban areas, is below one.
[00:32:19]  In fact, the death rate among ethnic Russians significantly exceeds the birth rate.
[00:32:22]  In 2024, Russia's natural population decline was approximately 600,000 people.
[00:32:28]  And as for his vaunted Christian practice in Russia, you know, some two-thirds to three-quarters of people in Russia identify as Christian.
[00:32:35]  What percent regularly go to church?
[00:32:37]  Somewhere between two and 10%.
[00:32:40]  So all of this requires us to ask a question.
[00:32:43]  What's going on with this crazy contingent?
[00:32:45]  What's going on with the Joe Kents and the Candace Owens and the Tuckers and all the rest?
[00:32:49]  And the answer is this is all a demoralization op.
[00:32:52]  It is designed to undermine America, to teach all of us that our country is somehow a nefarious force in the world controlled by evil conspiratorial powers, that the world would be better off with a weaker America.
[00:33:03]  These kooks have decided that all the institutions of American life and all of our most cherished principles, things like meritocracy or free markets or free speech, those are all lies, inventions of an elite coterie of subversive secularists who just so happen to have weird relationships with Israel.

=== Demoralization Operations Explained (11:09) ===

[00:33:19]  Now, it's total trash, but it is kind of effective trash, as the algorithm demonstrates.
[00:33:25]  It's effective because it offers a way out for people who feel they've been left behind, people who feel betrayed, people who feel unsatisfied with their prospects.
[00:33:33]  The black pill that these people are offering you is basically ideological fentanyl.
[00:33:37]  It gives you this great temporary high, but soon you're addicted, trying to find that high again, mumbling to yourself, destroying your life, because it turns out that when you're black pilled about America, it makes it very hard to succeed.
[00:33:48]  You don't do the things necessary to succeed in life.
[00:33:50]  Meanwhile, for the majority of Americans who still have their heads screwed on straight, the question of war in the public mind is not about the Israelis or about Charlie Kirk or about global cabals.
[00:34:00]  It isn't even about a basic risk-reward analysis on the Department of War's budget or the efficacy of our military.
[00:34:06]  For Americans, the only real question, always and forever, is outcome.
[00:34:10]  If we win, Americans will like it.
[00:34:13]  And if we lose, Americans will be upset.
[00:34:15]  That is always the rule.
[00:34:17]  If you consider yourself to be a sane person, it helps to look at the facts and go from there.
[00:34:21]  Well, now that we're back to dealing with reality, let's get to what's actually happening with Trump and Iran.
[00:34:26]  But first, today's episode is sponsored by American Beverage.
[00:34:29]  Think about the iconic drinks you grew up with and still love today.
[00:34:31]  Whether it's a soda, sparkling water, a tea, or a sports drink.
[00:34:34]  The companies behind those beverages, Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, they've always made them right here in America.
[00:34:40]  So, while there's a lot of talk about bringing jobs back, America's beverage companies never left.
[00:34:44]  These are American companies making American products with American workers in America's hometowns.
[00:34:48]  275,000 men and women across all 50 states who show up every day, do the work, help keep the country moving.
[00:34:54]  We're talking good paying jobs, the kind of jobs you can raise your family on.
[00:34:58]  For more than 100 years, these companies have been part of the American story.
[00:35:01]  They are still here.
[00:35:02]  They're still investing, and they are still building.
[00:35:04]  Learn more about how they've been keeping America strong at weedeliverforamerica.org.
[00:35:08]  Again, that's weedeliverforamerica.org.
[00:35:12]  All righty, again, back to the questions from our special facts fam.
[00:35:16]  Savvy?
[00:35:18]  So how do you decide who is worth debating?
[00:35:20]  I personally think Tucker's kind of below you at this point to debate, but how do you decide whether someone would engage with you in good faith?
[00:35:27]  So I think that the real question is what standard can people be held to?
[00:35:30]  If you can't be held to the standard of the truth, if you lie on a routine basis, if you can't be held to a standard of ideology, ideological consistency, if you can't be held to any standard at all, if you answer every sort of serious critique with a retreat into your status as a comedian or a podcast host, or if you just make things up on the spot, if you posit conspiratorial nonsense that can't be debunked because there's no way to debunk absolute nonsense, I don't think that's worth anybody's time.
[00:36:00]  It seems to me a giant waste of time.
[00:36:03]  All righty, so yesterday President Trump announced that America has achieved a form of regime change in Iran.
[00:36:08]  After all, we have killed all of their leaders.
[00:36:10]  Here's the president.
[00:36:13]  But I hate to say it, but we killed all their leadership, and then they met to choose new leaders, and we killed all of them.
[00:36:23]  And now we have a new group, and we can easily do that.
[00:36:26]  But let's see how they turn out.
[00:36:29]  We have really regime change.
[00:36:32]  You know, this is a change in the regime because the leaders are all very different than the ones that we started off with that created all those problems.
[00:36:41]  So this was, I think we can say, Jason, this is regime change, right?
[00:36:45]  Well, I mean, to a certain extent, that is right.
[00:36:47]  Not only that, President, Trump has already announced that the war has effectively been won.
[00:36:52]  You know, I don't like to say this.
[00:36:54]  We've won this.
[00:36:55]  This war has been won.
[00:36:56]  The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news.
[00:36:59]  I mean, the New York Times, you read the New York Times, it's like we're not winning a war where they have no Navy and they have no Air Force and they have no nothing.
[00:37:07]  And we literally have planes flying over Tehran and other parts of their country.
[00:37:14]  They can't do a thing about it.
[00:37:16]  For instance, if I want to take down that power plant, that very big, powerful power plant, they can't do a thing about it.
[00:37:23]  It's like, take me.
[00:37:25]  That's all they can do.
[00:37:27]  Now, from an American perspective, he's right.
[00:37:29]  The war has been won on the military level.
[00:37:32]  Iran has done minimal, minimal damage by any sort of standard to American forces and interests.
[00:37:37]  Meanwhile, Iran itself has been published to dust.
[00:37:39]  Their ballistic missile program has basically been destroyed.
[00:37:42]  Their nuclear facilities have been pounded again.
[00:37:44]  Their drone program has been blown up.
[00:37:46]  Basically, the only thing Iran can do at this point is harass people.
[00:37:49]  They can harass their neighbors with occasional missile and drone strikes.
[00:37:53]  They can bother some shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.
[00:37:55]  Now, we're not done yet, as the Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth has made clear.
[00:37:59]  And that's why we see ourselves as part of this negotiation as well.
[00:38:03]  We negotiate with bombs.
[00:38:06]  You have a choice as we loiter over the top of Tehran, as the president talked about, about your future.
[00:38:11]  The president has made it clear that you will not have a nuclear weapon.
[00:38:14]  The War Department agrees.
[00:38:15]  Our job is to ensure that.
[00:38:17]  And so we're keeping our hand on that throttle as long as as hard as is necessary to ensure the interests of the United States of America are achieved on that battlefield.
[00:38:26]  This is not Iraq and Afghanistan.
[00:38:28]  This is not a president who's interested in vague end states.
[00:38:32]  He's been very clear with us about what we need to accomplish, creating the conditions for them never to have a nuclear capability.
[00:38:38]  And that's exactly what we're doing in historic fashion.
[00:38:40]  Thank you, Mr. President.
[00:38:41]  Okay, so what would victory look like for the United States?
[00:38:43]  Well, there are two types of victory here: political victory and actual victory.
[00:38:47]  We may already have an actual victory.
[00:38:49]  So, for example, let's say that Iran ends up falling in the next couple of years.
[00:38:53]  That victory will belong to President Trump because we will have weakened all of the foundations upon which the Iranian regime stands in the same way that the Soviet Union falling belonged to President Reagan.
[00:39:03]  Now, it won't be a political victory because you need an exclamation point for a political victory, some way to say we didn't just win, Iran also lost.
[00:39:12]  So, where is Iran right now?
[00:39:13]  Did they totally lose?
[00:39:14]  Well, on the one hand, we can make the argument that them winning would just be them surviving.
[00:39:20]  That survival amounts to not losing.
[00:39:23]  Israel and America's other regional allies would have to continue to exercise overwatch of the regime to ensure they don't renew their missile and drone and nuclear programs.
[00:39:33]  But we do have to ask: is not losing really victory for Iran?
[00:39:36]  It might be for the moment, but not for long, because Iran would remain isolated, throttled, devoid of basic resources.
[00:39:42]  Remember, before this war, there were already millions of people in the streets protesting the regime.
[00:39:47]  The Riyal was running at.00001 to a dollar, and they had so little water that they were moving millions of people out of Tehran.
[00:39:56]  They were actually evacuating their own capital.
[00:39:57]  Can this regime continue to limp along on that basis for many more years?
[00:40:02]  Well, now the question becomes whether or not President Trump can force the Iranians into a deal that achieves political victory, like a good end state that he can go home and brag about.
[00:40:11]  Despite members of the media and Democratic politicians saying they don't actually believe that President Trump has been talking to Iran, it has now been confirmed there are, in fact, negotiations between the two countries indirectly.
[00:40:20]  And President Trump is talking as though concessions are being made by Iran.
[00:40:24]  Here was President Trump yesterday.
[00:40:26]  They're going to make a deal.
[00:40:27]  They're going to make a deal.
[00:40:28]  They did something yesterday that was amazing, actually.
[00:40:31]  They gave us a present, and the president arrived today.
[00:40:36]  And it was a very big present worth a tremendous amount of money.
[00:40:41]  And I'm not going to tell you what that present is, but it was a very significant prize.
[00:40:50]  And they gave it to us, and they said they were going to give us.
[00:40:52]  So that meant one thing to me: we're dealing with the right people.
[00:40:55]  Is that nuclear-related?
[00:40:56]  No, it wasn't nuclear-related.
[00:40:58]  It was oil and gas-related.
[00:41:00]  And it was a very nice thing they did.
[00:41:02]  But what it showed me is that we're dealing with the right people.
[00:41:05]  Okay, so what kind of concessions are they actually making?
[00:41:08]  The devil remains in the details.
[00:41:09]  So President Trump said yesterday that Iran has agreed it will never have a nuclear weapon.
[00:41:14]  But if they get to retain a nuclear program that could easily be turned toward weapons development, that's not good enough.
[00:41:19]  Will they retain enriched uranium?
[00:41:21]  I mean, we'll have to find out.
[00:41:23]  President Trump has made clear that, in his view, they must never have a nuclear weapon.
[00:41:29]  And remember, it all starts with they cannot have a nuclear weapon.
[00:41:32]  Just, you know, I said yesterday, they said, what are the top 10?
[00:41:36]  I said, well, number one, two, and three is they can't have a nuclear weapon.
[00:41:41]  And they're not going to have a nuclear weapon.
[00:41:44]  And we're talking about that.
[00:41:44]  And I don't want to say in advance, but they've agreed they will never have a nuclear weapon.
[00:41:50]  They've agreed to that.
[00:41:52]  Well, President Trump has apparently released a list of demands from the Iranians at this point.
[00:41:57]  One, all existing nuclear capabilities will be dismantled, which I assume means all of their nuclear plans, a commitment that Iran will never strive to obtain nuclear weapons, which would have to be enforceable.
[00:42:09]  No material will ever be enriched on Iranian soil.
[00:42:12]  So, again, that means no nuclear program at all.
[00:42:15]  All enriched material will be handed over to the IAEA in a short-term timetable to be defined between the parties.
[00:42:20]  Natan's Isfahan Fordo would be decommissioned and also destroyed.
[00:42:23]  The IAEA would have full access to all information within Iran's borders.
[00:42:27]  Iran would completely abandon its terror proxy network.
[00:42:29]  Iran would stop financing and arming proxies in the region.
[00:42:32]  The Strait of Hormuz would remain open, would be a free maritime zone.
[00:42:35]  No one would block it.
[00:42:37]  And as for the missile program, according again to the talking points put out by the administration, there would be a decision at a later period, but they would have to limit the quantity and the range.
[00:42:48]  And future use of missiles would have to be for self-defense purposes only.
[00:42:52]  In return for all of that, theoretically, Iran would have sanctions lifted.
[00:42:56]  They would receive assistance in developing a civilian nuclear program in Bushir.
[00:42:59]  So basically, we'd build them low-level nuclear programs for energy.
[00:43:04]  And the threat of snapback sanctions would be removed.
[00:43:06]  Now, I have a question.
[00:43:07]  Does that sound like Iran is ready to do any of that?
[00:43:09]  I have some very, very serious doubts.
[00:43:12]  Now, at the same time, President Trump does not want to leave the rest of the region subject to the whims of the MOLAs.
[00:43:18]  President Trump's strongest support for continued action, actually, at this point, is coming from the Saudis, according to the New York Times.
[00:43:23]  Quote, in recent days, Mr. Trump has given more serious consideration to a military operation to seize Kharg Island, the hub of Iran's oil infrastructure.
[00:43:31]  Such an operation with airborne army forces or an amphibious assault by Marines would be immensely dangerous, but Prince Mohammed has advocated ground operations in his conversations with Mr. Trump, according to people briefed by American officials.
[00:43:43]  Now, listen, I actually agree with Mohammed bin Salman's assessment here.
[00:43:46]  If America were to grab control of Harg Island, the actual capacity of Iran to survive even midterm drops dramatically.
[00:43:53]  Now, here is President Trump speaking about MBS and Saudi.
[00:43:57]  No, we have a great relationship with Saudi Arabia.
[00:44:00]  What do you hear with Saudi Arabia?
[00:44:02]  I'm just hearing that you've been talking and that he has been encouraging you to do certain things related to Iran.
[00:44:07]  Can you share how he's a warrior?
[00:44:08]  He does.
[00:44:09]  Yeah, he's a warrior.
[00:44:10]  He's fighting with us, by the way.
[00:44:11]  Saudi Arabia has been excellent.
[00:44:15]  So, what comes next?
[00:44:16]  Well, the answer, as it has always been, is in the hands of the Iranian government.
[00:44:20]  Remember, Iran could have at any time for 50 years, they could do it today, reintegrated into the world economy by ending its global ambitions, its support for terrorism, its nuclear program.

=== The State Turns Right (14:29) ===

[00:44:29]  They have not done that.
[00:44:30]  Now, maybe they're willing to moderate now.
[00:44:32]  I kind of doubt it, but there are still plenty of levers left for the United States to pull.
[00:44:36]  President Trump has already shown high willingness to do just that.
[00:44:39]  The Wall Street Journal is reporting as of yesterday, quote, the Pentagon is planning to deploy about 3,000 soldiers from the Army's elite 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East to support operations against Iran, according to two U.S. officials, with a written order expected in coming hours.
[00:44:53]  Officials cautioned a decision to put boots on the ground in Iran has not been made, but deploying the 82nd opens the door to President Trump for several strategic options.
[00:45:02]  So, again, special operations, limited in duration.
[00:45:05]  This is not the kind of quagmire boots on the ground stuff people were talking about.
[00:45:08]  We're not talking about 100,000 troops occupying Iran indefinitely.
[00:45:12]  At most, you're talking about a ground operation to take away territory used to target the Strait of Hormuz, to take away Kharg Island.
[00:45:20]  That's probably what we are talking about here.
[00:45:22]  And just a second, we'll get to more first.
[00:45:24]  Passover is almost here.
[00:45:25]  This year, a huge number of people in Israel are going to mark the holiday while at war with Iran.
[00:45:30]  I have a lot of friends over in Israel, and school's been out for the last three weeks.
[00:45:34]  People have basically been living underground at night.
[00:45:36]  For many, people fear sleeplessness.
[00:45:38]  These have become part of the daily routine.
[00:45:41]  Just one reason why the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is on the ground right now, delivering food, equipping shelters, caring for Israel's most vulnerable citizens.
[00:45:49]  They're doing great work, making sure that people have what they need.
[00:45:51]  Visit benforthefellowship.org to rush your lifesaving gift today.
[00:45:55]  That's one word.
[00:45:56]  Ben for the fellowship.org.
[00:45:58]  Okay, meanwhile, as we've been talking about, Democrats continue to play both sides on illegal immigration.
[00:46:02]  They continue to shut down funding for DHS.
[00:46:05]  On one side of the Democratic Party are the extremists.
[00:46:08]  These are the people who claim that Republicans are somehow to blame when an illegal immigrant murders a citizen in a sanctuary city like Chicago.
[00:46:15]  We talked yesterday about the horrible murder of Sheridan Gorman.
[00:46:18]  now, the Illinois governor, J.P. Pritzker, is blaming President Trump somehow.
[00:46:55]  It takes a lot of brass to blame the president for a murder in your state because of your own sanctuary policies.
[00:47:00]  At the same time, Democrats don't actually really want to go back as a party to the bad old days of abolish ICE, except, of course, for people like AOC.
[00:47:08]  Hakeem Jeffries now claims Democrats were always for secure borders, which, to make my second OJ reference of the show, is somewhat like saying that OJ was in favor of traditional marital arrangements.
[00:47:19]  Here's Hakeem Jeffries: In a country where the American people want immigration enforcement to be fair, just, and humane, we're going to continue to make sure that there are secure borders.
[00:47:30]  But we do have a broken immigration system, and we should fix it.
[00:47:33]  Let's do it in a comprehensive and bipartisan way.
[00:47:37]  Now, President Trump is correctly firing back.
[00:47:39]  He's pointing out Democrats seem kind of happy to keep defunding ICE indefinitely.
[00:47:43]  The Democrats in Congress do not care how much American blood they shed and their demented pursuit of open borders.
[00:47:51]  From Sheridan Gorman to Jocelyn Nungery and Lake and Riley, their quest to flood our country with illegal aliens has left countless American victims in its wake.
[00:48:02]  They never changed.
[00:48:03]  They see what's happening.
[00:48:04]  They never change.
[00:48:05]  That's what they want.
[00:48:06]  They want to get the votes with sanctuary and sanctuary cities going at levels that they are.
[00:48:13]  And we've ended a lot.
[00:48:14]  We've done a lot.
[00:48:16]  But for some reason, they love it.
[00:48:18]  It's a sanctuary.
[00:48:19]  You know, sanctuary cities are truly a sanctuary for criminals.
[00:48:24]  He is not wrong.
[00:48:25]  Well, while all of this is happening, Democrats have defunded DHS.
[00:48:28]  That means they've also defunded TSA.
[00:48:30]  So now it appears that President Trump is going to consider that DHS funding deal Republicans in the Senate were pushing a couple of days ago.
[00:48:37]  That would be the deal to reopen TSA and then also separately fund DHS in some sort of reconciliation package.
[00:48:42]  Here's President Trump announcing that.
[00:48:44]  Well, I'm going to look at it, and we're going to take a good hard look at it.
[00:48:48]  I want to support Republicans.
[00:48:49]  And, you know, sometimes it's awfully hard to get votes when you have Democrats that don't want to have voter ID.
[00:48:55]  They don't want to have proof of citizenship.
[00:48:57]  They don't want to do anything about men playing in women's sports.
[00:49:01]  That's one of the items we put on, you know.
[00:49:03]  And I did that just because it's so popular.
[00:49:05]  You know, they say that's at least an 80-20 issue.
[00:49:08]  No, it's about a 99-1.
[00:49:10]  So, you know, I think the president would be right to actually allow the TSA to be funded at this point.
[00:49:16]  Because, again, Democrats trying to defund the rest of DHS, I think they look like fools.
[00:49:21]  But in the end, if people are waiting in line for a very long time, everybody gets blamed, including the incumbent party.
[00:49:27]  All righty.
[00:49:27]  Well, today I had the opportunity to sit down with Byron Donalds.
[00:49:30]  Byron, of course, is running for governor of Florida.
[00:49:33]  That gubernatorial election is coming up.
[00:49:34]  Big primary coming up.
[00:49:36]  Fascinating interview.
[00:49:37]  Here's what it sounded like.
[00:49:39]  Congressman Byron Donalds is, of course, a representative for Florida's 19th congressional district.
[00:49:43]  He's been there since January 21, and he is currently running for governor of Florida.
[00:49:47]  Congressman, thanks so much for joining us.
[00:49:49]  Really appreciate it.
[00:49:49]  That's my pleasure to be here.
[00:49:50]  Thanks for having me.
[00:49:51]  So why don't we talk about why you're running for governor of Florida?
[00:49:54]  What comes next for the state of Florida as a person who came here in 2020 because of the excellent governance?
[00:49:59]  What do you think is the next step from here?
[00:50:01]  The next step is maintaining all the great success of Governor DeSantis, but then also planning for Florida's future.
[00:50:08]  Since COVID ended, we've had massive increases in population.
[00:50:12]  Everybody knows that.
[00:50:13]  Whether it was COVID or common sense, conservative governance or just great sunshine, they've chosen Florida.
[00:50:19]  But now we have to manage that growth into the future.
[00:50:22]  We're going to get more people into our state because look, New York and California are terrible.
[00:50:26]  You got Kathy Hochle out there now begging people to come back to New York after she said, yeah, go down to New York.
[00:50:31]  We don't want you anymore.
[00:50:32]  Well, guess what?
[00:50:33]  They're not going back.
[00:50:34]  But that's a positive.
[00:50:36]  But now you have to manage that.
[00:50:37]  It's also about making sure you continue the conservative trajectory that Florida has been on for a very long time.
[00:50:43]  I moved to the state at 17 years old.
[00:50:45]  I've been in this state for 30 years.
[00:50:47]  Everything I've built in my life has been built in Florida.
[00:50:50]  And so what I want is the state to remain the number one state in America.
[00:50:54]  And that's going to be continuing focuses on law and order, conservative policy, limited government, but also making sure our kids are getting a world-class education in this state.
[00:51:03]  We want them to have a pathway to success where they're mastering core subject matter.
[00:51:08]  If it's going directly into the workforce, getting the credentials they need so that they can actually build the Florida dream for themselves, the same way I built the dream for myself here in this state, or if it's going to college or university, it's going to be diversifying our economy even more while protecting our ag lands in rural Florida.
[00:51:23]  But then also with what's happening in the Space Coast, that's going to continue to grow in our state, aerospace, defense, finance is moving to Florida in a major way.
[00:51:32]  We have everything going great in our state.
[00:51:36]  I want to make sure that those gains, that growth, that success, while still being based on conservative principles continues in the great state of Florida.
[00:51:44]  So what do you think the big challenges are?
[00:51:45]  So obviously, living here, I think everything's hunky-dory.
[00:51:48]  It looks as though the state has moved dramatically in a right-wing direction.
[00:51:51]  Obviously, Governor DeSantis in 2018 won an incredibly narrow race over a person who then ended up having some problems.
[00:51:58]  But then by his re-elect, he was winning by leaps and bounds, 20 points.
[00:52:02]  So what do Republicans need to do to maintain that sort of momentum here?
[00:52:06]  Are you concerned about the possibility of a reversion back toward a sort of half-half politics in Florida, which is how Florida was when I was a teenager?
[00:52:14]  I'm always concerned about that.
[00:52:16]  You have to be.
[00:52:17]  The old adage in politics is run like your 10 points down.
[00:52:20]  And I always think like, man, this thing can unwind very, very fast.
[00:52:23]  But how you avoid that is first, you just get your business done on time.
[00:52:27]  You make sure the trains are running on time.
[00:52:29]  So the first bedrock of our state, law and order.
[00:52:32]  That will not change.
[00:52:32]  We're going to make sure that that law and order is prioritized.
[00:52:35]  We're going to continue to back our sheriffs, our police officers, emergency personnel.
[00:52:40]  Number two, we have to actually make sure our government is efficient and actually moving forward into the future.
[00:52:45]  If you're going to build a home in our state, right?
[00:52:47]  Everybody wants to talk affordability these days.
[00:52:49]  Building a home in our state, it takes about two years to put a shovel in the ground.
[00:52:52]  Two years.
[00:52:53]  And those two years aren't free.
[00:52:54]  Time is money and money is expensive.
[00:52:56]  And so you have to find ways to be far more efficient with the resources that we have so you can deliver the services that some people do rely on in our state.
[00:53:03]  That's two.
[00:53:04]  But number three is the blocking and tackling of politics.
[00:53:07]  You have to have clear vision for what Florida is and the future of Florida.
[00:53:12]  We are always going to be a conservative state.
[00:53:14]  That is the bedrock of what we are, not going to change.
[00:53:17]  And I think that if you start talking to people, as I've been around the state, I've been in 54 of the 67 counties now, right?
[00:53:23]  People love the state.
[00:53:24]  Independents and Democrats love the state.
[00:53:26]  So it's about making sure that we continue the trajectory that we're on.
[00:53:29]  But like I said before, you have to plan for the future.
[00:53:32]  Power, water, building the roads that we need.
[00:53:36]  How are we going to maintain the beauty of Florida?
[00:53:38]  Everglades restoration, making sure we take care of our environment.
[00:53:41]  All those things come together.
[00:53:42]  If we do that work and then do the blocking and tackling of politics, we will be just fine in our state, but you still got to run like a 10 points down.
[00:53:49]  Take nothing for granted.
[00:53:50]  So you're running for governor, but obviously you're still in Congress.
[00:53:53]  A lot of questions about how this election cycle is going to go for Republicans in Congress.
[00:53:56]  Obviously, it's an off-year election.
[00:53:58]  The history just shows that off-year elections go poorly for the party in power.
[00:54:02]  What are you looking forward to in 2026?
[00:54:05]  Do you think the Republicans have a shot at maintaining the House?
[00:54:07]  Obviously, it's an incredibly narrow majority right now.
[00:54:10]  What are the chief issues that you hope the administration and the Congress focus on going forward, going into 2026?
[00:54:15]  Well, I think the economy, still being focused on the economy, affordability issues.
[00:54:20]  Those are still going to be key.
[00:54:22]  Also, telling the story of what we accomplished the last 15 months or so.
[00:54:27]  Everybody has to remember what the president came into at the start of last year.
[00:54:32]  Our economy flat on its back.
[00:54:34]  Inflation was very, very high, even though it was coming down.
[00:54:36]  Prices out of control.
[00:54:37]  The economy wasn't going very well.
[00:54:39]  Border was unsecured.
[00:54:41]  10 million new illegals in the country.
[00:54:43]  That was 15 months ago.
[00:54:45]  Look how far the country's already progressed with Republicans in control.
[00:54:49]  We have to tell that story.
[00:54:50]  Now it's 3 million people have been deported.
[00:54:53]  They got sent back to their home countries.
[00:54:54]  That's a good thing for the country.
[00:54:56]  Border secured on day one.
[00:54:57]  If you look globally, the president's doing a phenomenal job on foreign policy.
[00:55:01]  But coming back domestically, people are getting their tax-free funds now.
[00:55:05]  They're getting more money in their pocket.
[00:55:06]  Wages adjusted for inflation is rising in the United States.
[00:55:10]  That's a positive economic indicator going forward.
[00:55:12]  Obviously, you have the conflict in Iran.
[00:55:14]  I don't think that's going to last very long.
[00:55:16]  And so when that comes to an end, I think you're going to see global oil markets.
[00:55:21]  That's going to come down to price per barrel because it's a spot price looking at what's happening across the entire globe.
[00:55:26]  We have a great story to tell as Republicans being in control.
[00:55:30]  And what's the alternative?
[00:55:32]  We want more Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.
[00:55:34]  What did they do when they were in charge?
[00:55:36]  They did absolutely nothing.
[00:55:38]  I guess the way to encapsulate what the Democrats would do in power is what Kamala Harris said in that faithful interview that killed her campaign.
[00:55:45]  Like the one on the view, when they asked her, like, what would you change?
[00:55:48]  And she goes, well, nothing comes to mind.
[00:55:49]  Well, what would the Democrats actually do different than what they did when Joe Biden and the Democrats were in charge?
[00:55:55]  And to be blunt, nothing much comes to mind.
[00:55:58]  So when we talk about the war in Iran, obviously that's forefront in people's minds right now, given what's going on.
[00:56:03]  So you mentioned, I agree, that this is not a long-term proposition and that many of the critics of the war have been suggesting it's a forever war, which is an amazing statement given that we are approximately three weeks into a war.
[00:56:13]  Typically, forever is longer than three weeks.
[00:56:15]  Last time I checked the calendar, the president has made clear that he wants there to be an end determinist to American involvement here sometime in the near future.
[00:56:23]  What do you think of how the war is going?
[00:56:25]  What do you see as sort of the end point here?
[00:56:26]  First of all, this has been military precision, unlike anything that we've ever seen.
[00:56:31]  They've been very tactical.
[00:56:32]  They've been very focused.
[00:56:33]  And I think that's a key thing when you're trying to make sure you maintain support amongst the American people.
[00:56:39]  What's the mission goals?
[00:56:40]  Are you executing those goals?
[00:56:42]  And do you have a strategy to get out?
[00:56:44]  I think they do.
[00:56:44]  I talked with the president Friday a little bit about this.
[00:56:47]  Don't want to get into obviously too many details, but it is very clear from my conversation with him that they are focused on the mission.
[00:56:54]  I don't think this is going to go much longer, to be honest with you.
[00:56:57]  And I think that's a good thing.
[00:56:58]  I think the people who are trying to downtalk the president and his decision making, trying to conflate this with Iraq and Afghanistan, are very misguided in that type of thought process.
[00:57:09]  Knowing the president, he's never been a fan of long military engagements anyway.
[00:57:13]  And so I don't anticipate that to happen.
[00:57:15]  But I think if you're going to talk about Iran specifically, this has needed to happen for a long time.
[00:57:20]  The Ayatollah and that regime, they want to build nuclear warheads.
[00:57:25]  That is a fact, unmitigated.
[00:57:27]  The second thing is what we just saw with the last ballistic missiles launched is that their ballistic missiles range is a lot farther than most people thought.
[00:57:34]  And that actually imperils Europe and imperils our ally.
[00:57:38]  And if you allow them just to continue to build like this untouched and unfettered, then yes, they would build ballistic missiles that can reach America.
[00:57:47]  That is a fact.
[00:57:48]  And the last thing I'll say on the Iranians, the Chinese want to dominate the globe.
[00:57:52]  The Russians want to reconstitute the old Soviet Union.
[00:57:55]  I don't really know what the North Koreans want to do, but just leave them north of the 44th parallel and we'll call it a day.
[00:58:02]  But the Iranians do want global jihad.
[00:58:05]  They do want to dominate and kill not just the little Satan, but the big Satan.
[00:58:09]  And I think with that theocratic terrorist regime that is there, you cannot give them any.
[00:58:15]  sliver of hope whatsoever.
[00:58:17]  It's one of the things that's really frustrated me with the Democrats with now wanting to push all these war powers resolutions and now talking about the funding for this conflict.
[00:58:25]  All you're doing is aiding and abetting the Iranians because right now they're just trying to sue for time and sue for peace so they can, because quite frankly, they think the West is weak and they think the West will not follow through.
[00:58:37]  And so they want that time and they want that space so that they can just, they can just go back and go back and build more, build more missiles and try to reconstitute the program.
[00:58:45]  And I'm not going to every military conflict, dropping bombs and all that stuff.
[00:58:52]  I actually don't want military conflict, but there are key times when you have to use the might of our military.

=== Financial Efficiency in Politics (05:50) ===

[00:58:58]  This is that key time and the president's doing a great job with it.
[00:59:01]  So you've been spending an awful lot of time on the ground in Florida, traveling all over the state.
[00:59:05]  What are you hearing from voters about their chief concerns and how are you addressing those concerns?
[00:59:09]  Affordability.
[00:59:10]  It's the big one.
[00:59:10]  Well, there's two.
[00:59:12]  One is people just want Florida to remain Florida.
[00:59:14]  They love the state.
[00:59:15]  People love coming here.
[00:59:16]  They love living here.
[00:59:17]  Affordability is a major concern.
[00:59:19]  The governor and the legislature are going to have a special session in a couple of weeks or maybe a month or so about property taxes.
[00:59:25]  I hope the governor is successful in eliminating homestead property taxes.
[00:59:28]  I support him in that.
[00:59:30]  They did great work on insurance a couple of years ago in legislative session where they did some tort reforms that is pushing down the loss ratio in insurance, which is bringing more insurance carriers into the state.
[00:59:41]  What I want to do is build upon that.
[00:59:43]  And we're going to keep the tort reform in place.
[00:59:45]  But what we also want to do is look at the regulatory environment around insurance in our state.
[00:59:49]  We haven't looked at that in probably about 25, 30 years.
[00:59:52]  And by the way, I chaired insurance and banking when I was in the state legislature and I was in insurance in my career, 17 years in finance.
[00:59:58]  So we want to look at the regulatory framework of insurance in our state, find other key ways to push insurance rates down in Florida.
[01:00:05]  The third thing, and I talked a little bit earlier about the permitting issues, if it takes you too long to build a house, the cost of that house is not being borne by the contractor or the developer.
[01:00:15]  It's borne by the end user, whether that's single-family housing, one to four family rentals, commercial strip centers.
[01:00:22]  We want to make sure that we're being efficient with that time and squeezing those costs out.
[01:00:27]  The National Association of Home Builders came out with a report.
[01:00:30]  They said 30% of the cost of building a house in America today is government.
[01:00:34]  30%.
[01:00:35]  So if the house is 300,000, 100,000 of that is government.
[01:00:40]  That's insane.
[01:00:41]  We have to do better, especially with technology today.
[01:00:44]  We can do better.
[01:00:45]  So I think you squeeze out those costs, make Florida's government far more efficient and responsive.
[01:00:51]  That's how you actually can push down the cost side of things in our state.
[01:00:55]  Everything else is, you know, those are international markets, global markets dealing with procurement of raw materials, et cetera.
[01:01:01]  But there are things we can control in Florida, and that's what we want to do to address affordability.
[01:01:05]  So we were talking off the air before we got on camera about sort of the life of campaigning, which honestly sounds horrifying to me because it's enormous number of travel and amount of travel.
[01:01:16]  And two, you have to deal with an enormous number of people, which is, as my viewers know, I'm not necessarily a people person.
[01:01:22]  There are certain people with whom I'm a people person, but they're usually restricted to my immediate family and immediate friends circle.
[01:01:27]  But you have to be somebody who's out there talking to people all the time.
[01:01:29]  Number one, how's that treating you?
[01:01:30]  And number two, for people who actually don't know your sort of backstory, how did you get to the point where you're running for governor of Florida?
[01:01:36]  I do like people, which is interesting because I used to be an introvert.
[01:01:40]  So this is kind of learned behavior.
[01:01:41]  Where I learned to really start talking to people and engaging people was first in my career.
[01:01:47]  Like I spent 17 years in finance.
[01:01:49]  So I started in commercial banking.
[01:01:50]  I worked in insurance and I worked in financial services.
[01:01:53]  I was securities licensed.
[01:01:55]  I built a book of business in Naples, Florida, where I live with my wife, Erica, and our children.
[01:02:01]  I was also a youth leader in my church for 12 years.
[01:02:04]  So like if you can learn to like teenagers, like a whole group of teenagers, you're good.
[01:02:08]  You can figure out just about anybody else.
[01:02:10]  And so through that process, I became much more outgoing and engaging people.
[01:02:15]  How I got into politics, it was 2008 financial collapse.
[01:02:19]  I was working in insurance at the time.
[01:02:21]  One of our major investors wanted to pull their investment because they were just really freaked out about the American economy.
[01:02:28]  They were international.
[01:02:29]  And I had to go do the research.
[01:02:30]  I had just left commercial banking.
[01:02:32]  So I'm doing all the research to try to save the investment because if the investment leaves, I'm out of a job.
[01:02:37]  And the last thing I did before I put out my report to the owners of the company, I turned on the House Financial Services Committee in Congress.
[01:02:45]  I had never watched anything political.
[01:02:47]  I was apolitical most of my life up until that moment in 2008.
[01:02:52]  I watched that hearing and I said to myself, who are these people?
[01:02:57]  Why are they not smart?
[01:02:58]  How come they don't understand what's going on in the economy?
[01:03:01]  They're designing the solutions.
[01:03:03]  And I just, I went down a rabbit hole.
[01:03:05]  I started watching more political news.
[01:03:08]  And political news is, honestly, it's not very good.
[01:03:11]  It's very surface level.
[01:03:12]  And so I started reading books on politics, political philosophy.
[01:03:16]  The law by Frederick Basciat's the first book I've ever read.
[01:03:19]  I love that book.
[01:03:20]  I recommend it to any young person or person in general who's trying to understand politics.
[01:03:24]  I say, forget politics.
[01:03:26]  Understand the purpose of law first, and then that will help you.
[01:03:29]  So read that, read Milton Friedman, Red Locke, read Montesquieu, obviously Federalist Papers.
[01:03:37]  And I was a part of the Tea Party movement 09, 10, and just really got ingrained in that movement in Naples, Florida.
[01:03:44]  And it just one thing led to another.
[01:03:45]  And here I am.
[01:03:47]  Well, Byron Donalds running for governor of Florida.
[01:03:49]  Where can people go to help out your campaign?
[01:03:51]  ByronDonald's.com.
[01:03:52]  All the social media is at Byron Donald's.
[01:03:54]  The campaign's going very, very well.
[01:03:56]  Primary day is in about five months.
[01:03:59]  Ballots go out in about four months.
[01:04:01]  And so the Republican primary is a big deal.
[01:04:04]  August 18th.
[01:04:04]  Please would love to have obviously your support, but obviously the viewer support as well.
[01:04:09]  And, you know, we're just really excited.
[01:04:11]  We have a great state.
[01:04:13]  I want Florida to remain the number one state in America when I'm long gone and I'm retired and I'm 77.
[01:04:19]  Let the next governor have a great time.
[01:04:21]  But I want to make sure our state continues to be the best in America.
[01:04:23]  Well, if you're the governor and then you turn out to be 77, you may be running for president.
[01:04:27]  That's the way it is.
[01:04:30]  One job.
[01:04:31]  That's it.
[01:04:31]  One job.
[01:04:32]  I really appreciate it.
[01:04:33]  Thanks for stopping by.
[01:04:34]  Thank you.
[01:04:34]  Thank you.
[01:04:36]  All righty, folks, coming up.
[01:04:37]  The show continues for our members.
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