Ben Shapiro exposes the "No Kings" protests as a $3 billion operation funded by Neville Roy Singham and Jodi Evans, linking them to global Marxist networks while detailing protester violence against ICE agents. He contrasts this with Israeli police restrictions on Cardinal Pizzabala's Palm Sunday Mass due to Iranian missile threats, dismissing international outrage as an overreaction. Finally, Shapiro critiques Vice President JD Vance's call to abolish the Senate filibuster, arguing Republicans should instead push for a constitutional amendment to permanently enshrine it against future Democratic elimination attempts. [Automatically generated summary]
Folks, 8 million people just took to the streets to stop a king who does not exist.
They say they are protesting tyranny, but if you look at who's actually holding the megaphone and more importantly, who's signing the checks, this grassroots movement starts looking a lot less grassroots and a lot more like a sophisticated and coordinated operation.
From Hollywood elites having public meltdowns to radical activists calling for labor militancy, we've got it all.
The real story isn't actually the useful idiots on the streets.
It's the apparent $3 billion web of funding tied to a tech tycoon living in Shanghai and a wedding-turned mysterious summit in Jamaica.
Yeah, that's a real thing.
So, who are these shadowy figures funding the chaos?
Why are America's enemies cheering from the sidelines?
We're going to name some names and follow the money from Shanghai to the streets of New York.
We'll get into all of that and a lot more.
This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
Well, President Trump is not a king.
We know this because, you know, that time he was elected and then he was not elected and he left office, which doesn't happen with kings, and then he was elected again.
Again, none of that happens with kings who are typically not elected.
Also, he's not a king because he can't just do anything that he wants.
So, for example, this is why DHS has still not been fully funded and yet to sign an executive order.
And it's why the SAVE Act is not law yet.
And why President Trump has been unable thus far, to my great consternation, to build a Trump hotel on the smoking ruins of the UN building, which I would love.
But this weekend, according to the Wall Street Journal, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets across the nation for a day of no kings rallies Saturday in opposition to President Trump, who organizers say is running the country more like a king than a president.
The No Kings coalition estimates at least 8 million people nationwide participated in protests on Saturday.
Now, again, I kind of doubt those numbers.
Whenever organizers tell you a number, it's typically way more than the actual number.
Organizers said 350,000 people showed up in New York City alone, which is indeed a lot of people.
It's a pretty big turnout, and it's worth talking about why these people are turning out.
So let's start with why they are clearly not turning out.
They're not turning out because they oppose kings.
I suppose I actually agree with the stupidest person in the United States Senate, Maisie Hirono, unchallengeable title, truly a dullard.
She tweeted yesterday, quote, Donald Trump is not, never will be, and has never been a king.
Hashtag no kings.
I agree.
He has not, is not, and never will be a king.
That's true.
But let's be clear.
These people are not turning out because they suddenly oppose centralized government.
You think Democrats are anti-centralized government?
They are anti-a bigger federal government run from the executive branch.
I remember a couple of presidents, Obama and Biden, who radically expanded the power of the executive branch.
Remember that time?
Do you remember when Barack Obama said, you know, if Congress ain't going to do what I want them to do, I got a pen and I got a phone.
And you remember, he then used that pen and that phone to do things like, for example, saying that all childhood arrivals of kids who are illegally here would be deferred, right?
That was the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which was not passed via Congress.
It was signed by the president as an executive order.
You also may remember that time that Joe Biden tried to use the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to cram down a vaccine mandate on 80 million Americans.
Remember that time?
Maybe you remember that time that Joe Biden decided that he was going to ignore the Supreme Court and simply get rid of student loan debt.
They weren't protesting for any of that, right?
Now, that was pretty significant centralization of power in the executive branch, but they didn't care.
They're also not turning out in the streets because they oppose foreign interventions like what's going on in Iran.
Certainly not because they oppose tyrants.
They were fine with Barack Obama's interventions in Libya and in Syria and in the drone wars he was constantly fighting.
They were totally fine with Joe Biden's funding of the war in Ukraine for that matter.
And it's not as though they're anti-tyrant.
Like right now, they are protesting that President Trump is fighting tyrants.
Like, for example, Nicolas Maduro, an actual honest-to-God communist tyrant, or the Cuban communist regime, an actual honest-to-God tyranny, or the Iranian Moans, some of the worst tyrants on planet Earth.
So they're not anti-tyranny, the No Kings people.
They're perfectly pro-tyranny in foreign countries.
And they're kind of pro-tyranny at home when they agree with the tyrants.
They're not even turning out because they're upset with corruption.
You'll remember Joe Biden pardoning his entire family on the way out.
So we all know the real reason here, right?
The real reason is because a lot of people hate President Trump.
It is indeed that simple.
They just do not like the president.
They don't have any principled stand here.
They're not protesting a specific issue.
It's an agglomeration of various people who are mad about various things, but in the end, are just mad at, quote unquote, the system and President Trump.
And also, a lot of these people are quite terrible.
Julio Rosas over at Storyful, he was out there taking videos of the protesters.
Apparently, protesters were throwing concrete bricks at a federal building.
So that was great.
Yeah, the honorary flag of third worldism everywhere, the Palestinian flag, and hurling rocks and bricks at the federal building.
Throws like a girl, by the way.
Got these significantly overweight protesters chucking concrete blocks at a federal building and a guy wearing a shirt that says the Second Amendment is for shooting ice.
Nice people.
Meanwhile, rioters were defacing federal buildings as well.
Here's one clip from Fox News.
It says, kill your local ICE agent.
So here you have this fat ass with his or her unclear, the gender of said fat ass.
Spray painting on a federal building.
Or our honorary handmaid's tail cosplay.
This is old, man.
This reference is old.
You need new references.
You just do.
The handmaid's tail stuff.
This is in Nashville.
The handmaid's tail stuff, people walking around by making reference to a TV show that has not been relevant for, what, three, four years at this point, I believe.
And they're all carrying signs like Prince Andrew, Elon Musk.
Apparently, these are all Epstein-related, I guess.
Josh Harris, and it's all dudes wearing handmaids.
By the way, nothing to say from these folks about people who are actually stuffed into handmaid's tail-like outfits in the Middle East.
But they're walking around Nashville free as a bird.
Dudes wearing handmaid's tails outfit, just genius-level stuff.
Some of the protesters in Washington, D.C., talk to our own Breca Stoll of Daily Wire.
There was one protester, a black woman, who said that black women are being murdered when they seek medical care, which is, I feel like that'd be a bigger story if that were true.
unidentified
Black women are pretty much being murdered in medical professions when we go to seek medical care.
And that research is being defunded.
We have to make sure that we are putting in the work.
Black women are not being murdered for seeking medical care.
That's what?
Meanwhile, there were white ladies there too.
And the white ladies were telling Brecca that there's nothing better they can do, literally nothing better they can do, than to show up on the streets of Washington, D.C., saying things as white women.
unidentified
As a white woman, this is the least I can be doing.
There are so many marginalized voices in this country that need to have a safe space to be able to be who they are.
And I have that privilege to be able to come out here and stand up for something that's right.
So that's why I'm out here.
As someone who looks the way that we do, there's nothing better we should be doing on a Saturday.
Nothing, nothing better you can do on earth than stand on a street corner and hold a sign.
Also, one white protester was out there saying it's not safe for black people to be out there, which is weird because we just saw a black lady who was out there talking to Brecca.
So that's a little weird.
unidentified
This is not, it is not for black people, for people of color to get out on the street.
They're at risk when they do that.
If anybody's going to get arrested here, it's going to be a black person.
It is not safe for them and they don't need to participate.
All those guys for the Congressional Medal of Freedom, seriously, love it.
Love it.
An entirely bunch of people of color who work for ICE laughing at undoubtedly a white dude yelling at them for being fascist tools of tyranny.
That's some strong stuff right there.
Okay, in just one second, we're going to get into some of our favorite celebrities who showed up to be complete idiots over this.
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Alrighty, so back to the idiots who seem to think that President Trump is a king.
These celebrities showed up as well.
Oh, the celebrities.
And they have so many incisive takes on politics.
So many.
Robert De Niro is still wandering around, you know, with the same vim and vigor that he showed in the Irishman during that fight scene where he was de-aged but still looked like an 80-year-old man trying to kick somebody on the street.
Anyway, he is still out there doing No Kings.
By the way, the No Kings rally, he's doing this like from his, apparently from his basement.
Producer Savvy points out that he's basically just now playing his character in Meet the Parents.
That's where we are right now.
Meanwhile, Jamie Lee Curtis is showing up as well.
She loves the Constitution, Jamie Lee Curtis.
That's why she is saying no kings.
Again, one of the best things about the no kings rallies is the baseline assumption that there is no king because there is no king, which is why they can do what they're doing.
So I'm not sure what they're protesting, but they know what they're protesting.
Trump, that evil Trump.
Here we go.
unidentified
We have to fight for the right to party.
And I don't mean the political party because I don't really care which political party you believe in as long as you believe in the Constitution and the fundamental freedoms that the Constitution protects.
It's like when you go to that worst job interview you've ever gone to.
You know, if you ever interviewed anybody, sometimes you'll get somebody who comes in for an interview and you'll say, you know, tell me your shortcomings.
What are the things that you have to fight?
And they'll be like, you know, my biggest problem is I'm just too hardworking.
Meanwhile, Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has continued to preside over the downfall of his own city, says that it's time to end the assaults against immigrants over on MS Now.
No Kings Day.
unidentified
What's your message for the community here?
Well, it's pretty straightforward.
We have to end the assaults against working people.
Now, I will point out at this point that Loyola University is in Chicago, and it was an illegal immigrant who shot to death a woman in his city pretty famously in the last two weeks.
Well, you know, these sorts of protests do have some truck outside the United States.
America's enemies are counting on the No Kings useful idiots to do their dirty work for them.
So the Iranians are super happy about this.
Ayatollah Khomeini was tweeting from the grave.
I'm not sure who was doing it.
It was not him.
He's dead.
We killed him.
So he's been dead for a few weeks now, but apparently his corpse is tweeting now.
And he put out a statement, quote, right now, people throughout all U.S. states are chanting slogans against him, Trump.
If you're so capable, solve their problem.
You interfere in the affairs of other countries.
You build military bases.
And then it quotes that from October 20th, 2025.
Wow.
Wow.
Well, I mean, Khomeini from the grave in solidarity with hashtag no kings.
Meanwhile, Mohammed Khalibaf, who is the supposed moderate head of the parliament, he's not moderate, spoiler alert.
He is making common cause with the no kings ralliers.
Quote, welcome to the party we started 47 years ago.
No kings.
This is the people of Iran.
And we approve this message.
Hashtag no kings.
Yes.
If there is one, if there's one government that says there must not be a centralized tyranny that dominates all aspects of life, it is the Iranian government.
And of course, you have Ilhan Omar, who, again, you want to talk about immigration mistakes, letting her family in, gigantic immigration mistake.
Here's Ilhan Omar suggesting that the real problem with America is that Trump is bombing schoolgirls.
Again, what's so disgusting about this particular slur, this particular calumny, is that the notion that the American military is deliberately bombing schoolgirls, while Ilhan Omar is supportive of actual terrorist groups that actually deliberately bomb schoolgirls is pretty astonishing stuff from the sitting Congress person in Minnesota.
A little more verbal, a little more vocal grind there.
That's what we need.
A little more vocal grind on top of that would make it even more annoying.
So let's be clear about this no kings thing.
We're not looking at a bunch of well-meaning, freedom-loving people who are upset because Big Brother is watching.
We're looking mostly at an agglomeration of a lot of people who are misinformed, who've been told things that are not true by the legacy media, and their leadership who are malign.
But the big question remains, how are they getting these kinds of numbers?
And the answer, at least in part, is a lot of organizing, and that organizing costs a lot of money.
I mean, like a lot of money.
So Fox News has a new report.
It's kind of shocking.
Quote, a network of about 500 groups with an estimated $3 billion in combined annual revenues is behind the coordinated nationwide No Kings protest on Saturday, including communist groups who are using the day to call for a revolution, according to a Fox digital news investigation.
So where exactly is that money coming from?
Well, apparently, some of these groups are Soros funded, but Fox News Digital has identified key participation by a network of radical socialist and communist organizations funded by Neville Roy Singham, an American tech tycoon and avowed communist who lives in China.
So you literally have a communist living in China who is funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into various protest groups.
According to Fox News, Singham has financed a constellation of activist institutions that promote revolutionary socialist policies and frequently collaborate in protest campaigns.
That includes the Answer Coalition, Code Pink, the co-founder of Code Pink, by the way, Jodi Evans, is married to Singham.
What a delightful, what a delightful couple.
By the way, Fox News has a deep dive on their marriage today, and it's a pretty great report.
Quote, as far-left American activists flood Cuba to support its flailing communist regime, U.S. officials have opened a sprawling investigation into an anti-American pro-China nonprofit network forged during a wedding celebration in late February 2017 off Runaway Bay on Jamaica's northern coast.
There beneath a canopy of palm trees, an elite cadre of activist intellectuals, celebrities, political organizers, and comrades in a global Marxist-Leninist Maoist movement assembled to celebrate the revolutionary love of two luminaries, both 62 at the time, Neville Roy Singham, American-born tech tycoon living in Shanghai, and Jodi Evans, a red-haired veteran, activist, and co-founder of CodePink Women for Peace.
Over four days of dancing, lectures, and late-night conversations in venues from the Flavor Beach Bar to Sharky Seafood, celebrating the bond of Roy and Jodi, alliances were formed that would shape protests, unrest, and political agitation over the next decade.
That weekend, Vijay Prashad, an academic described in the official wedding itinerary as a Marxist intellectual, spoke on a panel called The Future of the Left.
By the way, you want to talk about like a horrible wedding weekend, horrible wedding weekend.
You get invited to somebody's wedding and they break out Das Capital and decide to do a panel called The Future of the Left.
That sounds horrible.
Well, from that beginning of Godfather One Wedding, apparently springs, a magical nexus of wild left organizations that now numbers an estimated 2,000 parroting propaganda from China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, and Gaza.
Within activist circles, according to Fox News, far-left critics refer to leftists who align with authoritarian regimes as tankies.
Many groups and leaders from Singam's network, including Evans and Benjamin, are part of the pro-communist convoy.
Now, in Cuba, apparently, Singham has pushed some $278 million from him into organizations that sow discord in the United States.
So, no, this is not all innocent.
No, it's not just all happening by accident.
Yes, it takes an awful lot of money to make this magic happen.
I mean, who is Neville Roy Singham, by the way?
Well, here he was at a conference in November 2025.
If we want to therefore have a new world order that is based on multilateralism that President Xi and CPC and China have proposed, we have to undo the ideological damage that has been done by the narrative of World War II.
And I'm real proud, of course, that it was first in Guancha here in China because I will tell you, the majority of my friends in the global south do not know that 35 million Chinese perished.
It's not a known fact in the majority of the world.
It's very important that this story is told to the whole world because my friends in Latin America were shocked when they find this out.
So China has a very important role, and we in this forum have a very important role that to envision a new multi-order polarity order requires the, quite frankly, the deconstruction, a restorationist history.
What really happened?
Who really suffered?
Of those who died, almost 70% of the people who died in World War II were in China and the Soviet Union.
For the radical left Democrats in Congress to immediately end their dangerous shutdown of our Department of Homeland Security, you know, they want to play games.
That's all they are.
These people are lunatics.
They sort of remind me of, they remind me actually a little bit of Iran.
The deranged, the deranged, the deranged Democrats.
Well, I mean, the No Kings protesters are certainly the leadership are deranged.
The leadership are absolutely deranged for sure.
But deranged, not in the sense that they're just crazy, but politically deranged.
They're literally not on the normal range.
Well, in just a second, we're going to jump into what's happening in Iran, which, of course, is a flashpoint in American and international politics.
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Enormous number of people in Israel are still living under the sirens from the north, firing rockets from Iran every single day.
Passover reminds us that God still hears the cries of his people and answers with love and compassion, which is why the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is on the ground right now, delivering food, equipping shelters, and caring for Israel's most vulnerable.
IFCJ is doing tremendous work over there, making sure, particularly that people who are old and vulnerable, actually have resources.
You can stand with Israel today.
Your Passover gift declares that the story of deliverance lives on through faith, through action, and through you.
Visit benforthefellowship.org to rush your life-saving gift again.
That's benforthefellowship.org.
There's a lot going on over there.
A lot of people who are in need.
It's been several years of war at this point.
You can help out by heading on over to benforthefellowship.org again.
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All right.
Meanwhile, speaking of the Middle East, President Trump is keeping all options open to finish off the Iranian threat.
Now, that might include special operations ranging from attempts to take Kharg Island, that, of course, is the source of 90 to 95% of all Iranian oil, to operations against areas on the shores of the Strait of Hormuz to make sure that the Iranians don't have a source from which to fire their drones at shipping, to an operation on the ground to seize enriched uranium.
CBS News reports that the Pentagon is preparing for weeks of ground operations in Iran as thousands of American soldiers and Marines arrive in the Middle East for what could become a dangerous new phase of the war should President Tronel Trump choose to escalate.
Any potential ground operation would fall short of a full-scale invasion and could instead involve raids by a mixture of special operations forces and conventional infantry troops, which, again, is what we have been talking about.
That if there are going to be any sort of American boots on the ground, we're not talking about tens of thousands or 100,000 American troops on the ground in Iran, a rock style.
That is not what we're talking about.
We've never been talking about that.
According to CBS News, discussions within the administration over the past month have touched on the possible seizure of Kharg Island, also raids into other coastal areas near the Strait of Hormuz.
The Wall Street Journal reports alongside all of this that the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit has now arrived in the Middle East, bringing a range of capabilities into theater, giving President Trump more options in the war against Iran.
Now, again, all this makes sense.
You want all options at your disposal, particularly because if the idea is to ratchet up the pressure in order to ensure some sort of negotiation, right?
Keep that pressure up, you want more resources available.
Well, the president put out a statement to that effect on Monday morning via Truth Social.
He said, United States of America is in serious discussions with a new and more reasonable regime to end our military operations in Iran.
Great progress has been made, but if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately open for business, we will conclude our lovely stay in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells, and Kharg Island, and possibly all desalinization plants, which we have purposefully not yet touched.
This will be in retribution for our many soldiers and others that Iran has butchered and killed over the old regime's 47-year reign of terror.
Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Trump.
Now, the question there, of course, is whether the president sticks with those threats.
How relevant are those threats?
Obviously, we have seen a couple of those sorts of threats that have not fully materialized in the past.
The president, for example, absolutely gave the go-ahead to the Israelis to bomb the South Pars gas field.
And then, when Qatar got upset and the president said that Israel had kind of gone off the leash and they'd done it themselves, and then he said that he would not be bombing any more energy fields to allow time for negotiation.
You know, is he actually going to go ahead and bomb desalinization plants, for example, which basically shuts down all resources in the country?
Again, this is one of the things about President Trump.
The answer could absolutely be yes.
The Iranians are hoping that President Trump is bluffing.
That's the entire game.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araki put out a tweet: quote: Nisanya, who gambled with American taxpayer dollars and American lives, having badly lost that gamble, is now single-handedly making sure that ordinary Americans, particularly retirees and those retiring in the next few years, will pick up the tab.
Again, it is incredible how open, like truly open, the appeal from the Iranian government directly to the grievance party right is.
Directly to them.
He is absolutely like the Iranian government is counting on the grievance party right to shout in President Trump's ear and get him to stop.
That is their last available opportunity.
They know Trump doesn't care what the Democrats have to say.
They know President Trump doesn't care what the legacy media have to say.
So they're just trying to ratchet up pressure from the grievance party right.
Mohamed Khalibaf, their terrorist parliament leader, again, he was IRGC, who may or may not be negotiating with the U.S., said this: quote, heads up, pre-market so-called news or truth is often just a setup for profit taking.
Basically, it's a reverse indicator.
Do the opposite.
If they pump it, short it.
If they dump it, go long.
See something tomorrow, you know the drill.
So now he's giving investment advice.
Again, the idea being that President Trump is bluffing, that really there's nothing going on.
Well, Secretary of State Rubio says, listen, Iran is behind all the problems in the Middle East.
Now, the Iranians, again, they are trying to increase attacks on America's Gulf allies in the region.
So on Friday night, Iran launched an attack on a Saudi Arabian airbase.
They injured some 12 American troops, two of them relatively seriously, is my understanding.
10 not nearly as seriously.
They damaged an American E-3 sentry, which is an airborne warning and control system aircraft.
Those are the airplanes that look like they have a big radar dish on top of them.
The United States has approximately 30 of those aircraft in operation.
Again, the goal here would be to scare the Gulf allies into begging the United States to call it all off.
Iranian President Mahmoud Pezezkian is trying to plead with our Gulf allies to tell the U.S. to stop.
He put out a tweet quote: They've said many times that Iran doesn't carry out preemptive attacks, but we will retaliate strongly if our infrastructure or economic centers are targeted.
Well, I mean, they have literally carried out preemptive attacks on all of the Gulf allies, none of whom have actually participated in offensive action.
He says to the countries of the region: if you want development and security, don't let our enemies run the war from your lands.
The idea that UAE, that Saudi, that Bahrain, that they're all sitting around believing that Iran is going to make a deal with them, it's not going to work.
The thing the Gulf allies are most afraid of is that the Iranian regime survives in rump form and then rebuilds.
And by the way, it is Russia feeling the pressure too.
So there's been a lot of talk about Russia benefiting from the war.
In the short term, sure.
In the long term, not even remotely close.
According to the Wall Street Journal, over the long term, the conflict poses a much bigger threat to Russia's global ambitions.
In recent weeks, Russia has stepped up its support for Iran, its closest partner in the Middle East, providing satellite imagery and drone technology to help Iran target U.S. forces in the region.
By the way, remember, this is a supposed allied country.
Remember, Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, and others have said Russia is our friend.
Why can't we be friends with them?
They are literally providing satellite tech and drone technology to help Iran target U.S. forces in the region.
Why are they doing this?
Well, because if Iran were to go down, then Russia's connections in the region basically disappear.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Russia has been advising the Iranians based on their experience in Ukraine.
And again, Russia's advice and targeting is believed to have aided Iran in strikes on U.S. radar systems in the region.
Now, there are those of us who are very anti-Vladimir Putin and Russia throughout the war in Ukraine.
There is a reason for that.
If you know a single thing about what the Russian dictator actually believes and the people around him, you know that they are not oriented toward the West.
They are oriented toward their own imperialistic interests.
They have been for legitimately generations.
So, with all of that said, it is now becoming clear that Russia is in trouble as well.
Russia is feeling the heat.
That is the reason why they've gotten so involved.
Iranian President Mahmoud Pazeshkin is actually thanking Russia.
Quote: President Putin's messages and the support of the Russian people inspire us in this war.
The resistance and courage of the Iranian people promise new bonds that will ensure the security of East Asia by the countries of the region.
On behalf of the people of Iran, I thank the government and people of Russia.
So, again, the Russians, not the good guys, they never were.
Well, President Trump, for his party, says there are still a lot of targets left on the board.
President Trump also added that the Gulf allies and Israel are on the same side, so it's about time for the Saudis to join the Abraham Accords.
This, of course, is exactly correct.
The Saudis, by the way, would like to join the Abraham Accords.
That's the reality.
The Saudis would like to do it.
The Saudis basically have said that as long as there is a plan to make a plan to one day make a plan with regard to a Palestinian state, then an Abraham Accord or something like it would be on the table.
President Trump is saying: listen, you can see who the enemy of any sort of common peaceful interest is.
And it's not the Israelis.
So now would be a good time for everybody to sign on.
Meanwhile, by the way, the Iranian government is divided against itself.
According to Iran International, serious disagreements have now arisen between Pazehkin, who, again, is the one who's kind of like appealing to the Gulf allies to stop, and the IRGC chief commander, Ahmed Vahidi, over how to manage the war.
Pezehkian, who's widely perceived in the region as weak, is criticizing the IRGC for continuing to up the ante.
The IRGC, meanwhile, they're basically saying we want to keep upping the ante because eventually the Americans and Israelis will back down.
The Iranian regime, by the way, has taken it directly on the jaw.
Again, all of the talk about how America's, quote-unquote, losing the war, Iran has been absolutely pummeled.
Absolutely pummeled.
According to the Washington Post, four of Iran's key ballistic missile manufacturing locations and at least 29 ballistic missile launch sites have been damaged in the first four weeks of the U.S. Israeli offensive, undermining Iran's central military strategy.
The damage, according to the Post, has most likely halted Iran's ability to produce short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles until the facilities can be rebuilt.
Again, there's only one way that Iran gets out of this situation.
It is if the U.S., Israel, the Gulf allies somehow decide to basically leave the Iranian regime in place and in effective control of the Strait of Hormuz.
That is the entire Iranian game.
I think the president knows that, which is why I think it is highly unlikely that that is the end point here.
Meanwhile, there was a tempest and a teapot on X this weekend surrounding Israeli home front restrictions on gatherings in Jerusalem's old city.
So first, before I start explaining this story, you need to understand the geography of the old city.
You've got to spend a lot of time in the old city.
The old city is a warren.
What I mean by that is the streets are about the size of my desk.
I mean, the streets are incredibly narrow.
You cannot fit emergency vehicles through those streets.
You can't drive a normal car through those streets.
You can maybe fit a VESPA.
All the buildings are chic and jal next to each other.
Many of the buildings do not have any sort of protective infrastructure for missile attacks.
They were built literally a thousand years ago.
And so many of them, particularly the holy sites, were built so long ago.
It's not as though if a missile hits the Dome of the Rock or Al-Aqsa or, as it turns out, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, that somehow it's going to stand up to that.
Okay, so there have been significant restrictions in Jerusalem's old city.
Those restrictions are not the same as in the rest of Jerusalem.
Again, makes sense.
If you've ever visited the old city, it is geographically distinct from the rest of Jerusalem.
If you go out into, right outside the old city, to say Mamila, Mamila is a modern mall.
Mamila has bomb shelters.
Mamila has parking lots.
Mamila has streets, right?
All of the buildings were built sometime over the course of the last 40, 50 years.
That is a different thing.
Okay, so you need to know that so that you understand the backdrop to what happened over the weekend.
So controversy broke out over a visit by the Cardinal Pier Battista Pizzabala and other prominent Catholic figures, like a couple of other prominent Catholic figures, to the church of the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday.
That is the date, of course, that traditionally marks Jesus entering Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week to celebrate Palm Sunday Mass.
That's why they were going.
So apparently, Pizzabala and the others, again, there's a couple of other people, they wanted to go and they wanted to do the Mass by themselves, and they were stopped by Israeli police.
Again, the reason that that happened, it was a mistake, as we'll see.
But the reason that happened is because the entire old city is currently under severe restrictions thanks to safety concerns over Iranian missile attacks.
Why are people concerned?
Well, because of situations like this.
What you see here is a piece of Iranian missile.
It is on a roof, a red tile roof.
That red tile roof is maybe 30 feet from the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Or this, March 20th.
This is March, again, this was like 10 days ago.
This is a picture of what it looks like when a missile fragment slams into the old city.
This is about 1,500 feet from the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
So if that hits the church of the Holy Sepulchre and there are people inside, those people are dead.
That is why you have homefront regulations.
Now, what do those regulations say?
The current homefront regulations in the old city prevent all gatherings in the old city more than 50 people.
But that's not the only restriction.
In areas that are not within immediate reach of a Muhammad, a Mamad is a protected space in Jerusalem, or a bomb shelter.
There are no gatherings that are permitted at all.
Unless you like live in your house, you're not supposed to go to places that do not have a Mamad or access to a bomb shelter in the Old City.
The Old City is basically shut down.
Again, there is a reason for that, because if you go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and it is hit by a missile, you can't even get an emergency vehicle in there.
The streets are incredibly narrow.
Police say the alleys correctly are mass casualty risks, which is why the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has been largely closed to the entire public since early March.
By the way, everything in Israel is like the schools are closed.
As we'll talk about in a second, it's not the only holy site in the Old City that's closed.
It is not a standard protected space against direct ballistic missile assault.
It isn't close to a mamad.
It is not close to a bomb shelter.
It is in the middle of a honeycomb of close quarter alleyways.
The church of the Holy Sepulchre was not being treated literally any differently than any other site in Jerusalem.
Okay, so the idea that there was like a double standard being applied to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which as we'll see is sort of the accusation, it's not true.
This is a picture literally yesterday while this was happening of the Western Wall, which is treated by most Jews as the holiest site in Judaism.
The actual most holy site is above the Western Wall in the Temple Mount.
That's also totally empty.
There's no one there.
If you've ever been to the Western Wall, I've been there many times.
There are always tons of people there because, again, it is iconic.
No one there.
It's closed.
Al-Aqsa, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, up on the Temple Mount, a holy site to Muslims, is closed.
Nonetheless, the Patriarchate put out a statement, quote, the two were stopped en route while proceeding privately and without any characteristics of a procession or ceremonial act and were compelled to turn back.
As a result, and for the first time in centuries, the heads of the church were prevented from celebrating the Palm Sunday Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
This incident is a grave precedent and disregards the sensibilities of billions of people around the world who during this week looked to Jerusalem.
The heads of the churches have acted with full responsibility and since the outset of the war have complied with all imposed restrictions.
Public gatherings were canceled.
Attendance was prohibited.
Arrangements were made to broadcast the celebrations to hundreds of millions of faithful worldwide who, during these days of Easter, turned their eyes to Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Preventing the entry of the Cardinal and the Custos, who bear the highest ecclesiastical responsibility for the Catholic Church in the holy places, constitutes a manifestly unreasonable and grossly disproportionate measure.
This hasty and fundamentally flawed decision, tainted by improper considerations, represents an extreme departure from basic principles of reasonableness, freedom of worship, and respect for the status quo.
So I don't know what the improper considerations here are supposed to be.
That's the only part of the statement that I find somewhat objectionable.
I'm not sure what the improper consideration was, because I'll tell you what almost certainly happened.
What almost certainly happened is that there was a police officer stationed outside the church.
And the cardinal, who again proceeded privately with the custos without any characteristics, according to their statement, of a procession or ceremonial act, the police officer probably said it's closed.
And they said, well, we want to go inside.
And I'm the cardinal and I want to do the mass.
And the police officer, being, you know, a low-level police officer, probably said, wait for it.
It's closed.
And that was probably the whole story.
Now, let's start with the very obvious.
This is a blunder by the Israeli police.
Duh.
Yes, they were trying to maintain safety standards.
And also, given the importance of Palm Sunday Mass, some prior planning should have been done with the Patriarchate to allow a private service to take place.
By the way, it's still unclear in any of the reporting whether the Patriarchate actually went to the government to initiate those discussions prior to heading over to the church.
So if they did not, then the reality is they probably walked up to a random Israeli police officer who is stationed outside and told not to let anyone in.
And he said, we can't let anyone in.
And that's a blunder by the police for not pre-approving that.
But also, if the patriarchate didn't reach out in the first place, they should have done that, right?
The Israel police is committed to the safety of every soul in Jerusalem.
During Operation Roaring Lion, while our civilians are being targeted by Iranian regime ballistic missiles, our mission has been very simple, protecting life.
Under Home Front Command Directives, life-saving restrictions have been applied to all holy sites in the Old City.
This includes for Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike.
We've already seen the Old City targeted by these murderous missiles, not just once, and that's alongside the residential communities that are being targeted non-stop over the last month.
These threats, they don't discriminate by religion or background, and neither does our duty to protect you.
And because the lives of our Christian residents, civilians, and clergy are precious to us, we cannot allow public gatherings in areas that lack standard protected spaces.
The narrow alleys of the old city where emergency and rescue vehicles cannot quickly arrive to scene or victims means a single incident can become a tragedy.
Okay, so the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the police officer went on to explain, by the way, they're in dialogue and figuring it out.
So the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs then put out their own statement on this, quote, all safety and precautionary instructions in the old city are a direct result of Iranian missile fire.
Duh, again, duh.
I've been with my staff to Israel many times at this point.
My staff is largely Christian.
They all go to the site.
They all go to the site.
They have visited it many times.
Fabi, who does makeup here, she's been there pretty much.
When she goes, she goes all the time.
It's great.
It's a wonderful site, and it is perfectly open to Christians when there isn't missile fire raining down on the city.
Now, as the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, as is known, the Iranian regime has fired on the Old City on multiple occasions, striking sites in the vicinity of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Western Wall.
In light of this, and in order to protect the lives of worshipers of all faiths, precautionary instructions have been issued for all holy sites of all religions, and mass gatherings are not possible.
The concern over a mass casualty event in the Old City is particularly acute, given the area's density and the difficulty of deploying first responders in such an incident.
The police will meet with Cardinal Pizzabella, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, and work to explore solutions that allow for as normal a routine as possible while ensuring public safety.
In the picture, and then they included a picture that we showed you of the Iranian missile that hit just a few feet from the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Then the prime minister, Netanyahu, also put out a statement, quote, over the past several days, Iran has repeatedly targeted the holy sites of all three monotheistic religions in Jerusalem with ballistic missiles.
As a result, Israel has temporarily asked worshipers from all faiths not to worship at the holy sites in Jerusalem's old city to protect them.
Today, out of special concern for his safety, Jerusalem police prevented the Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pizzabala from holding Mass this morning at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Again, there was no malicious intent whatsoever, only concern for his safety and that of his party.
However, given the holiness of the week leading up to Easter for the world's Christians, Israel's security arms are putting together a plan to enable church leaders to worship at the holy site in the coming days.
And then the Israeli president put out a statement, again, similarly oriented, saying, quote, I just called the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, his Beatude, Cardinal Pier Batista Pizzabala, to express my great sorrow over this morning's unfortunate incident in the old city of Jerusalem, in which Cardinal Pizzabella and the Custos were prevented from entering the church of the Holy Sepulchre for prayers amid the ongoing security situation.
I clarify that the incident stemmed from security concerns due to the continuous threat of missile attacks from the Iranian terror regime.
I reaffirmed the state of Israel's unwavering commitment to freedom of religion for all faiths.
Okay, so as if that weren't enough, then the Cardinal put out his own statement too.
Quote, it is true that the police had said that the orders from the internal command prevented any kind of gathering in places where there is no shelter.
But we had not asked for anything public, just a brief and small private ceremony to preserve the idea of a celebration in the Holy Sepulchre.
So first of all, any kind of gathering in places where there is no shelter.
So in other words, it doesn't sound as though they actually went to the police to clarify before they went that you showed up and they wanted to do it.
And the police probably, again, it was a low-level police person who was there and probably said, it's closed.
And they said, but we want to go in.
He said, well, I'm sorry, it's closed.
And as the Cardinal says, quote, there were no clashes.
Everything was done in a very polite manner.
I do not want to force the issue.
We want to use this situation to try to clarify better in the coming days what to do in respect for everyone's safety, but also in respect for the right to prayer.
Again, the police should have responded by trying to accommodate the important private service.
And again, it is not just possible, but probable that the particular police officer at issue had no idea the cardinals and others were coming or that there was an important service plan.
And the state has made clear from literally every level that they will work with the cardinal and others to ensure that services over Holy Week can advance as necessary.
In fact, here is the Cardinal smiling with the Israeli police as of today.
Clearly, massive religious discrimination happening against Catholics in the Holy Land.
The Israeli police then posted, quote, following a productive meeting between the Israeli police and Latin Catholic Cardinal Pier Batista Pizzabella, a mutual framework has been established for upcoming Easter ceremonies.
Due to the complex security reality of Operation Roaring Lion, ceremonies including the Holy Fire will be held in a symbolic limited format.
This coordination ensures that freedom of worship is maintained alongside our shared primary duty, the protection of human life.
The life-saving restrictions are a direct response to a real and present danger to all worshipers.
And then the Latin Patriarchate itself put out the following statement this morning, quote, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the custody of the Holy Land hereby confirm the matters concerning the Holy Week and Easter celebrations at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre have been addressed and resolved in coordination with the relevant authorities.
Naturally, and in light of the current state of war, the existing restrictions on public gatherings remain in force for the time being.
Accordingly, the churches will ensure the liturgies and prayers are broadcast live to the faithful in the Holy Land and throughout the world.
And they expressed sincere gratitude for the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, for his prompt attention and valued intervention.
And they say, it is our hope that appropriate arrangements will continue to be found enabling prayer to take place in places of worship, particularly in the holy places of all religions, in a manner that both respects legitimate safety needs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Okay, so why was this an international story?
Well, I mean, it really shouldn't have been.
It was a local screw-up by local police in a dangerous time of war amidst broad-scale restrictions that apply equivalently to people of literally all religions in the old city.
Muslims, Jews, Christians, Armenians, Ethiopians, literally people of all forms of Christianity.
So why was this an international issue?
Well, because by some, particularly the World of X, it was treated as an all-out assault on Catholics everywhere, which again, you've seen the context.
That is, shall we say, unmerited.
The amount of outrage over the police's mistake, again, was treated by people in the world of X, which is psychotic, as an assault, a purposeful assault by the state of Israel on Catholic practice.
Emmanuel Macron, who, by the way, should never get to sound off on these issues.
He has presided over the wholesale surrender of his country to radical Islamism and radical secularism.
He's suddenly speaking out, quote, I condemn the decision of the Israeli police, which adds to a troubling series of violations of the status of the holy sites in Jerusalem.
Now, again, Macron had literally nothing to say about missiles being fired at the holy city.
He's too busy kissing the ass of Iran.
The same was true for Canada's Mark Carney, who suddenly found it necessary to sound off.
Let us make something absolutely clear because it's true.
Israel protects the rights of religious minorities in Israel, which is why the indigenous Christian population of Israel has increased over the decades.
Now, you may have heard from professional lawyers about the increasing Christian population of UAE or Qatar or Kuwait or Bahrain or Saudi.
You want to know why?
Because they're all foreign workers who have been shipped in.
They are not citizens.
They're not indigenous.
Christian churches in Israel own nearly 25,000 acres of land in Israel.
Churches own roughly 32%, one-third of all land in the old city.
And let's make something else clear.
Again, information, information.
It is totally meritless to suggest that the state of Israel is purposefully targeting Christian sites and leaders.
It is merit-free.
The law of Israel literally prevents this.
The Declaration of Israeli Independence guarantees freedom of religion.
There is a law from 1967 called the Protection of Holy Places law, and it mandates that holy sites of all religions, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, be protected from desecration and that access to them be guaranteed.
In fact, as far as I'm aware, literally the only religion that is being given specific, specific carve-outs here is Cardinal Pisabella and the Catholics.
There are Jewish rabbis who are not allowed to get together in areas in the Old City.
I think it is useful, and I think it is worthwhile.
And it is totally legitimate to be upset about a bad local police decision preventing a religious ceremony of tremendous importance from going forward.
But what is totally illegitimate and ill-advised and stupid and also malicious in many cases is to suggest that this was a purposeful state-driven attempt to discriminate against Catholics.
Again, the Patriarchate here will be the only such institution, as far as I'm aware, allowed to perform such services under current circumstances.
So don't pay attention to the not, and I will just point out the number of tweets on this topic, it trended number one yesterday, the number of tweets on this mistaken turning away of the Cardinal, hundreds of thousands, over 300,000.
The number of tweets total when a piece of Iranian missile nearly destroyed the place, 9,000.
So yeah, I'm not going to put a ton of stock in the sort of overwrought response that suggests not that a terrible mistake took place and should be rectified, which it has been, according to the Cardinal.
I'm not going to put stock in people who suggest that this is part of a total Israeli war on Catholics or some such nonsense because it isn't true.
It isn't true.
It is not factual.
And last I checked, telling lies remains immoral.
All righty.
So in just a moment, we are going to get to your questions.
But in order for your questions to be answered, well, actually, you know what?
We'll do it now.
Okay, so we have some questions from our friends, and it's sponsored by our friends over at PeerTalk.
This segment is sponsored again by our friends over at PeerTalk.
Here is Carol from Tampa, Florida.
unidentified
Hi, Ben.
What do you think about the filibuster?
Is Trump right as he has been about so many other things?
Will the Democrats just eliminate the filibuster when they come back into power?
It seems that so many great policies could breeze right through Congress if they could just rid us of the filibuster.
So, you know, again, this is sort of the great call that's being put out there.
The Vice President JD Vance actually said this yesterday.
So the Vice President put out a statement yesterday in which he claimed that we ought to basically trash the filibuster now because if we don't, then Democrats will.
So when Mitch McConnell and Lisa Murkowski say, well, we need to protect the filibuster because the Democrats, they're not going to do it.
So we shouldn't do it either.
The Democrats ruined the career of Kirsten Sinema for not overruling the filibuster.
They're going to do it.
So we might as well do it now to enforce the protection of the American electoral system.
It's the dumbest political argument I've ever seen.
I promise you, Benny, I would bet every dollar that I own that the next time the Democrats have control of the Senate, they will break the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, and destroy this country.
We have to do it now in order to save the country.
Now, again, I don't think this is totally non-credible.
I think that it is an argument worth listening to.
I asked Senator Thune directly about this just last week on the program.
I will say that if this is true, and the move Republicans should make right now is that they should immediately, like right now, say that there ought to be a constitutional amendment to enshrine the filibuster for all time.
And that if it is not passed within the course of the next three months, they're going to just nuke it.
This is a suggestion put forward by the co-founder of the Daily Wire, Jeremy Boring.
I've always thought it was a good idea.
The sort of mutually assured destruction of the filibuster, it seems like it might not hold in the future.
However, you just don't have the political support among Republican senators to, I mean, you would need unanimity among the Republicans.
I'm not sure that you have 30 Republican senators for destroying the filibuster.
And also, again, I will point out that there are a lot of Democrats.
I think John Fetterman is not going to vote in favor of destroying the filibuster, for example.
So, if you lost so much trust that you can't count on the other side to maintain the filibuster, you really should push for a constitutional amendment.
That should be the next move rather than just destroying the filibuster wholesale.
All righty, folks, the show continues for our members right now.
We'll be answering your questions over there as well.
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