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Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration

2025/5/1
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Well, folks, as always, tons of news, a firehose of news, but you need a reliable source for your news. You need a conservative source for your news. The legacy media, they think that you are too dumb to see through their lies. They like to twist the narrative or manipulate the headlines or bury the truth. We don't do that at The Daily Wire. We are going to bring you the facts with no filter or no spin, and then you get to

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If there were to be an economic downturn under President Trump, the rest of the very important agenda items that he is pursuing, everything from illegal immigration to wiping DEI out of the federal government, everything from rebuilding the United States military to Doge, all of it goes out the window if the economy falls. Because the way the American people think about politics is quite simple when it comes to precedents and the economy.

If the economy is good, the president gets the credit. If the economy is bad, the president gets the blame. It is really that simple. Well, yesterday, the GDP report came in and it showed negative GDP growth. Two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth is typically termed a recession in sort of technical terms. Now, obviously, Americans are

are feeling very skittish about the economy in general right now. And feelings, unfortunately, don't care about your facts when it comes to the economy very often. Sometimes people feel worse about the economy than it actually is. Sometimes they feel better about the economy than it actually is. But all of those feelings tend to make themselves actually heard in the economic statistics eventually because people are buying and selling and doing all of these things based on what they feel their own personal financial status is. According to the Wall Street Journal,

The U.S. economy contracted in the first three months of 2025 as businesses rushed to stock up on imports ahead of the Trump administration's tariffs and consumer spending slowed. The Commerce Department said U.S. GDP fell at a seasonally and inflation-adjusted 0.3% annualized rate in the first quarter. That was the first contraction since the first quarter of 2022. Consumer spending did increase at 1.8%. That is the smallest increase since mid-2023. Spending by the federal government fell, but the main driver of the first quarter contraction was...

Wait for it. The tariff war. Of course, of course. It turns out everyone has been on the edge of their seats. It's a roller coaster, this tariff war, at best. Investors have pulled their money out. If, in fact, they are spending, they are attempting to beat the tariffs to the table. They're essentially buying things, stocking up on imports before the tariffs hit.

Net exports, the difference between what the United States imports and exports, subtracted nearly five percentage points from headline GDP. This was the biggest quarterly drag from net exports on record, dating back to 1947. So basically, imports actually radically increased because everybody was trying to get in under the wire before all the tariffs kicked in. Imports subtract from the Commerce Department's calculation of GDP because they represent the spending on foreign-made goods and services. So...

Does this mean the economy is weak? It doesn't. The economy is not, in fact, weak. The economy, in the absence of the trade war, remains fairly robust at this point. Not like 5% GDP robust, but ready to grow. Deregulation and tax cuts without the trade war, and you'd have a booming economy right now, which is why I've been saying Peter Navarro needs to be fired. Just let Scott Besant run this ship. That's all. Just let it happen.

Because of lack of faith in the American economy, de-dollarization continues. This is foreign economies moving away from investment in the American dollar. According to Axios, the U.S. dollar index in Trump's first 100 days fell 9.5% compared to a 2.1% drop in the first 100 days of his term. The value of the greenback increased by 4.5% in George W. Bush's first 100 days when the country was headed into recession and rose slightly for both Obama and Biden.

So as recession fears rise, investors are actually moving away from the dollar. There's just less need for it if the feeling is that trade is going to decline. Why exactly would you invest in American dollars if you can't use those American dollars to buy American goods?

or if American companies are going to be hurt by their lack of export markets. So we're talking about the value of the American dollar and what actually has happened under President Trump. D-dollarization is a really dangerous thing. To articulate that, I asked our friend sponsors over at Perplexity, what would the impact be on American economics of D-dollarization? And Perplexity says, D-dollarization reveres to the process by which countries reduce their reliance on the U.S. dollar for international trade, financial transactions, and

and as a reserve currency. And the key economic impacts include higher borrowing costs and reduced financial flexibility, depreciation of the dollar and inflationary pressures.

U.S. financial assets like equities and bonds could underperform relative to global markets as international investors reallocate away from dollar denominated assets. If they're not using dollars, there's no reason for them to buy American products, for example, or American financial assets. A loss of geopolitical and economic leverage. Remember, President Trump likes using sanctions. Well, sanctions are only effective if you have something to actually take away from the bad guys.

And there would be uncertain effects on economic growth. The effect of U.S. economic growth is ambiguous. A weaker dollar could enhance export competitiveness, make it easier for us to quote unquote cheaply produce goods. But those benefits might be offset by reduced foreign investment. So again, all this is not a particularly great indicator. Now, President Trump continues to tout his tariff war in Michigan. He did that the other night. Here he was. But I'm thrilled to be back in this beautiful state. I love this state.

And a lot of auto jobs coming. Watch what's happening. The companies are coming in by the by the tens. You got to see what's happening. They all want to come back to Michigan and build cars again. You know why? Because of our tax and tariff policy. OK, well, that's not exactly right. The reason that's not exactly right is because GM reported its actual financials yesterday.

Apparently, GM has now reduced its profits 6.6% in Q1, and they adjusted their 2025 outlook as well. Their prior full-year guidance had suggested pretty significant growth. Now they say that while U.S. sales rose,

they are having a significant problem with the tariff war. In fact, the chief financial officer, Paul Jacobson, told reporters on a call, GM will not comment on the cost incurred from tariffs. Why? Because they're afraid of taking off President Trump, presumably. President Trump has already blown holes in his tariffs by announcing that there would be some exceptions for American car companies. GM said in January, it expected net profits in the range of $11.2 billion to $12.5 billion for full year 2025 and pre-tax profits of $13.7 billion to $15.7 billion.

But they're now revising all of those statistics significantly down based on the tariff war. So President Trump has been trying to adjust to that by essentially cutting holes in his own tariff regime. Meanwhile, Black & Decker, again, this is an industrial company, Black & Decker is raising prices this year and retooling their entire supply chain in an attempt to blunt the impact of the global trade war, according to executives on Wednesday to The Wall Street Journal.

They say that President Trump's tariff war is expected to dent their full year earnings per share by about 75 cents as it takes action to mitigate new costs. So this stuff is damaging. What's even more damaging is some of the rhetoric that is now surrounding this stuff. So President Trump put out a post yesterday in which he claimed that this is Joe Biden's stock market, not his own stock market.

This brings a strong contrast to 2024 when the stock market started to increase. He said it was his stock market because the markets were expecting him to be president of the United States. Now he's been president for four months.

And he is claiming that it is not his stock market. That is a dog that is not going to hunt just in terms of PR. Quote, this is Biden's stock market, not Trump's. I didn't take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in and our companies are starting to move into the U.S. in record numbers. Our country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden overhang. This will take a while. It has nothing to do with tariffs, only that he left us with bad numbers. When the boom begins, it will be like no other. Be patient.

Well, markets yesterday upon this news were not particularly patient. They've not dropped precipitously again because of the hope that President Trump is going to, in the end, back off of this tariff war. But I will say that politically speaking, President Trump is not setting himself up for success when he says what he said yesterday. So yesterday, President Trump suggested that this is not a big deal, that if there are problems with these supply chains and things just don't arrive on the shelves, you know, no biggie.

They made a trillion dollars with Biden, a trillion dollars, even a trillion won with Biden selling us stuff. Much of it we don't need. You know, somebody said, oh, the shelves are going to be open. Well, maybe the children will have $2 instead of $30. And maybe the $2 will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.

OK, that is not a dog that is going to hunt in any sort of future election for Republicans. Maybe they won't have $30 or kids. Maybe they will have two and maybe they'll cost more. No biggie. That is a let them eat cake approach to politics. It would be bad if a Democrat said it. It'd be bad if a Republican said it.

The reality is that when Americans feel that their choices in the market are constrained, when they have to pay more for their kids' toys, when they are told that it's not a big deal if their kid has to have fewer toys because of inflation, they are not going to feel the same way that President Trump just articulated. That is a tremendous commercial for Democrats.

President Trump should be avoiding language like that, obviously. We'll get to more on that in just a moment. First, Pure Talk, the cell phone company I use for business every day, is helping you save money on your cell phone bill. That's right. Pure Talk says, I don't think so. It's $100 a month cell phone plans. That's just wasteful and irresponsible. Instead, they're offering America's most dependable 5G network at America's most sensible prices. Listen to this.

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He told his supporters in Michigan on Tuesday, quote, I have a Fed person who is not really doing a good job. I want to be very nice and respectful to the Fed. So continuing to rip on the Fed, he's apparently not going to fire Jerome Powell, which would be a mistake to fire Jerome Powell. But he's going to continue to rip on Jerome Powell. What are the markets supposed to take away from that?

Well, you know, as somebody who invests, I will say that my takeaway is that doesn't seem like he's going to swerve away from his tariff agenda anytime soon. If he is still hoping that Jerome Powell is going to save him from the consequences of his own tariff war by lowering those interest rates, that suggests that he's going to continue with the very measures that have gotten him into this situation in the first place. And all of this has serious political ramifications. It's not just fun and games, not only because it affects the American people, their pocketbooks, their kitchen table,

but also because if the economy does continue to experience an economic downturn, if Americans continue to be very unhappy with the trajectory of the economy by every poll they are, Republicans will lose the House. And if Republicans lose the House, the investigations are coming. This is a point that Speaker Mike Johnson was making yesterday. He said, listen, if we lose the House of Representatives, they will impeach Donald Trump day one.

The economy goes south, environment's bad, and you happen to lose the House. How quickly do Democrats impeach Donald Trump? Oh, I'm sure on day one. I mean, you know, they've already filed articles, and they're talking about it as recently as this week. Is that part of your argument to voters, that Trump's impeachment is on the ballot in the midterm elections? Yeah, of course. I mean, it's a reality, and it's madness. You know, we've already seen the movie. They tried it twice already based on absolutely nothing.

So President Trump and team should keep that in mind. If Republicans lose the House, last two years of the Trump administration are basically done. Nothing gets done. And everybody sort of knows this at this point. So how does President Trump turn this thing around? The answer is actually quite simple. End the trade war, recalibrate, make a better policy toward China that actually does start boxing them into all the things we've been talking about on the show for weeks now. Deregulate and cut taxes. Those are the things.

It's not hard. Many of those things are things the Trump administration is already doing.

But the markets keep kind of hoping against hope that a bunch of trade deals are coming. And that is not an evidence at this point. According to Politico, White House officials have boasted that more than a dozen countries have put offers on the table to avoid the biting tariffs scheduled to kick in in just over two months, a sign President Trump's risky trade gambit is paying off. But the documents other countries have submitted to the White House are far from final offers, according to a dozen foreign diplomats and three officials granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive conversations.

They're preliminary outlines of what their governments are willing to discuss in trade talks. Some trade partners are balking and proposing even an outline of their terms before they get some more guidance from the United States on what President Trump even wants from the talks. One industry official said they're hesitant to negotiate against themselves. If countries are setting the parameters for what the negotiations are and not the administration with concrete asks, it's a little bit like they're setting themselves up. So what is coming down the line? Are these trade deals coming down the line? Because the tariffs are beginning to bite.

Now, there's another danger, too. China is experiencing an economic slowdown, as you would imagine. It turns out that cutting the Chinese off from the American markets, they do have an impact on China as well. And that would be a purely good thing if we actually had plans in place to contain the effects of that. So China's economy, according to the journal, showed its first big signs of damage from the trade war as steep U.S. tariffs pummeled export orders and production of the country's factories.

The sharp pullback shows that President Trump's eye-watering tariffs on Chinese imports are starting to squeeze the engine room of China's economy, piling pressure on Beijing to boost its own stimulus efforts to shore up growth. Now, China doesn't want to cut a deal with the United States because they feel that this is actually hurting the United States and President Trump worse than it is hurting them. That is despite the fact that it really is hurting China.

But here's part of the problem. If China felt that it was hurting China badly enough, this tariff war, China does have a get out of jail free card. And that get out of jail free card is a blockade of Taiwan. If China really felt threatened enough that their economy was going to go under or the CCP was in real danger, they would simply put a blockade around Taiwan, possibly destroy TSMC, which is the manufacturer of the semiconductors that power the globe. And most of the secondary semiconductors are made in China.

This is why it is not enough to have a good policy direction. You have to have a meticulous implementation of that policy. Now, look, the good news, as always, for the Trump administration is that its enemies are absolutely incompetent and quite terrible at this. Truly garbage at this. So the Democrats continue to futz around in search of a leader. It is funny to watch them kind of flail around like a fish out of water.

James Carville, who was still sort of the voice of reason on the Democratic side for a while there. He's now caving to the Democratic National Committee. So David Hogg, the insipid and ridiculous vice chair of the DNC. He was made the vice chair after launching a failed pillow company, attending Harvard University with very, very low SAT scores because he had been a student at Parkland during the shooting. Well, now he's the vice chair and he's been saying he wants to primary a bunch of moderate Democrats in purple districts.

And James Carville had criticized him. Well, now he's backing off, quote, just called David Hogg. He reminded me of the story of after the Battle of Shiloh, Henry Halleck urged President Lincoln to fire Ulysses Grant. Lincoln said, I can fire him. This man fights. David Hogg fights. The DNC needs him. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. So you're telling me that David Hogg, this ridiculous broomstick of a human, is Ulysses S. Grant to James Carville? He doesn't believe that at all. But the Democrats are trying to hold together the crazy wing and the somewhat less

crazy wing. Well, speaking of the crazy wing, Kamala Harris made her grand reappearance yesterday, just what Democrats need in a moment where President Trump is actually creating a series of targets for them to hit. They're trotting out the wildly unpopular Kamala Harris. By the way, brand new poll out today, I believe it's from Emerson, showing if there was another national election held today between Harris and Trump, who would win? The answer was Trump by one. In any case, Kamala Harris is back out there.

Speaking in San Francisco at the annual gala for Emerge, a group that recruits and trains women to run for office. Did you miss Kamala? Did you miss her? The answer, of course, is no one has missed Kamala. We barely even recognize she existed while she was running for president, given the fact that she was essentially a...

random person who was thrust into the limelight because Joe Biden died in the middle of the campaign. Well, anyway, here was Kamala Harris. I know, I know you missed the winding sentences, the sentences that run like a free-ranging river over the rocks of volubility. Here was Kamala Harris talking about the abandonment of American ideals. Instead of an administration working to advance America's highest ideals, we are witnessing the

The wholesale abandonment of those ideals. Wow. It's that sort of articulate, meticulous speech. That's why she's president of the United States today. Oh, wait. Here she was slamming the Trump administration. It's an agenda, a narrow, self-serving vision of America where they punish truth tellers, favor loyalists.

cash in on their power and leave everyone to fend for themselves, all while abandoning allies and retreating from the world. You guys are going to need someone better than that. What about Tim Walz? Remember, they trotted him out as a possibility for 2028 after his awful run for vice president. Well, yesterday he was talking about why he was nominated for vice president by Kamala Harris at the Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics. It didn't go great.

I knew I was on the ticket, I would argue because we did a lot of amazing progressive things in Minnesota that improved people's lives, but I also was on the ticket quite honestly, you know, because I could code talk to white guys watching football, fixing their truck, doing that, that I could put them at ease. I was the permission structure to say, look, you can do this and vote for this.

Well, I guess that the code talking didn't work. By the way, first hint that a candidate for the Democratic Party is not going to be able to talk to the bros. He uses terms like code talk. That would be the first indicator. Okay, so who else are the possibilities? Well, Democrats are positing that maybe

Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan would be a possibility, the governor of Michigan. And she has been making some interesting moves. She's been appearing on stage with President Trump trying to prop up his economic plans in the Midwest, particularly with regards to sort of factory jobs. Here she was appearing with President Trump and they hugged.

Well, I hadn't planned to speak, but on behalf of all the military men and women who serve our country and serve so honorably on behalf of the state of Michigan, I am really damn happy we're here to celebrate this recapitalization at Selfridge. It's crucial for the Michigan economy. It's crucial for the men and women here, for our homeland security and our future. So thank you. I am so, so grateful that this announcement was made today, and I appreciate all the work. Thank you. Thank you.

So the fact that she is now essentially appearing repeatedly with President Trump, that's a smart move because it makes her appear moderate. Or the alternative is AOC. Whitmer versus AOC is very likely to be the 2028 face down for the Democratic Party. So AOC continues to play coy about 2028, even as she runs around the country with Bernie Sanders abandoning her district and speaking in front of tens of thousands of cheering socialists. Here she was yesterday. You think about running for president?

Or send it? Because of my Instagram posts? No, the video. The campaign style video. It's got everybody talking. I mean, listen. I'm...

It's a video. And frankly, I think what people should be most concerned about is the fact that Republicans are trying to cut Medicaid right now and people's health care is in danger. And that's really what my central focus is. That's an avoidance of the question. That is not a no. You'll notice. So that is going to be the battle inside the Democratic Party.

Again, the Democratic Party is not in a strong position. All the polls show that the American people do not like them, which is why it is very, very important to take the football and run with it and not allow the economy to sink into recession.

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He announced yesterday that there would be a Ukraine minerals deal. You remember, this was supposed to be what was going to happen when Vladimir Zelensky visited the United States back in February. And there was that pretty awful showdown between Zelensky and President Trump and the vice president, J.D. Vance.

He was supposed to sign some sort of rare earth minerals deal. And the sort of tacit promise of that deal was basically that if there was an economic relationship that was valuable to the United States and Ukraine, obviously the United States would have a stake in Ukraine not becoming Russian. Well, Secretary Besant made that absolutely clear yesterday in announcing the deal. Here he was.

Thanks to President Trump's tireless efforts to secure a lasting peace, I am glad to announce the signing of today's historic economic partnership agreement between the United States and Ukraine, establishing the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund.

This partnership allows the United States to invest alongside Ukraine to unlock Ukraine's growth assets, mobilize American talent, capital and governance standards that will improve Ukraine's investment climate and accelerate Ukraine's economic recovery. The Development Finance Corporation will participate and help to establish this fund in collaboration with the Government of Ukraine.

Today's agreement signals clearly to Russian leadership that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term.

Okay, so that is the important part is what he says there is that this is a sign that the United States would like Ukraine to retain its independence. Okay, if that's true, which I assume that it is, that will have to mean additional military support to Ukraine if Putin does not come to the table. Now, the goal, of course, is to get Putin to the table and then the Europeans can sort of take over. But in the meantime, you can't let Ukraine collapse or the rare earth minerals deal means pretty much nothing. So that is a welcome shift from the Trump administration and a good thing for Ukraine to have signed. Meanwhile,

And the media continue to be clown themselves in a wide variety of ways. So the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia continues to be a major talking point for Democrats. He's a bad guy, Kilmar Abrego Garcia. We now have reports of a second protective order that his wife filed against him in 2020, in which she accused him of physical abuse, threatening her. And she said that she even had a recording where he said, even if he killed her, quote, nobody can do anything to him.

So it sounds like just a fabulous person, just a really, really good, solid American, you know, a father, a Maryland father, as the media would put it. Well, President Trump was interviewed about this particular topic and he pointed out to ABC's Terry Moran that he had MS-13 tattoos. Now, the reason this has become a hot story today is because there was, in fact, a graphic that was put out by members of the Trump administration that showed that he had a series of tattoos on his knuckles.

Okay, those tattoos were a variety of symbols. Those symbols were interpreted by sources, judges, everybody else in the Trump administration

as MS-13 associated symbols. And so somebody basically took that fist and put above the knuckles MS-13 on the knuckles. And President Trump points out that these are MS-13 tattoos. Terry Moran seems to think that President Trump thinks that the letters MS and the numbers 13 are actually printed on the knuckles. And that's not what President Trump is saying. So they get into a weird fight over it.

But even the man that you picked out, he said he wasn't a member of a gang. And then they looked and on his knuckles, he had MS-13. There's a dispute over that. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. He had MS-13 on his knuckles tattoo. He had some tattoos that are interpreted that way. But let's move on. Wait a minute. Hey, Terry, Terry, Terry. He did not have the letter MS-13. It says MS-13. That was Photoshopped.

So let me do this. That was Photoshop. Terry, you can't do that. Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you're doing the interview. I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you, but that's okay. I picked you, Terry, but you're not being very nice. He had MS-13 tattooed. We'll agree to disagree. I want to move on to something else. Terry, Terry.

Do you want me to show you the picture? I saw the picture. We'll agree to disagree. Here we go. Don't Photoshop it. Go look at his hand. He did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way. I'm not an expert on them. I want to turn to Ukraine. No, no.

He had M.S. as clear as you can be, not interpreted. This is why people no longer believe. Well, the news, because when he was photographed in El Salvador, they aren't there. But let's just go. They aren't there when he's in there. Oh, they want to look at the photograph. They're there now, right? No, they're in your picture. Terry, Ukraine, sir. He's got M.S. 13 on his knuckles. All right.

OK, we'll take a look. It's such a disservice. We'll take a look. Why don't you just say yes, he does. And, you know, go on to something else. It's contested. OK, so again, it seems to me that they're talking past one other media is interpreting that as Trump saying over and over that the actual letters MS-13 are tattooed on his knuckles, regardless of whether that is true or not. And he does not, in fact, have the numbers and letters MS-13.

on his knuckles. He has a bunch of other really ugly tattoos that are probably associated with MS-13 on his knuckles. The point is, defending the guy himself as though he is some sort of great shakes is a huge Democratic mistake. Now, what is also a mistake for President Trump on this is to admit that

in interviews that he could theoretically get Abrego Garcia back, but he won't. Because again, there's court orders in place that suggest that he is supposed to use best efforts to work with the Salvadoran government to allow this

truly trash human being to get to process. You can believe both things. You can believe that Kilmer Albrecht Garcia appears to be an absolute trash human being, probably MS-13, and also that he should go through whatever processes do. And that doesn't mean a full trial. It does mean that he should go through whatever minor processes do, and then he gets expelled from the country again. Here's President Trump.

This is not an innocent, wonderful gentleman from Maryland. I'm not saying he's a good guy. It's about the rule of law. The order from the Supreme Court stands, sir. He came into our country illegally. You could get him back. There's a phone on this desk. I could. You could pick it up and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, send him back right now. And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that. But the court has ordered you to facilitate that.

I'm not the one making this decision. We have lawyers that don't want to do this. But the buck stops in his eyes. No, no, no, no.

So, I mean, that is going to be a problem in court. Again, like the economy, even if you like some of the ideas, the implementation matters. I like the idea of deporting everybody who is like Gilmar Abrego Garcia, possible gang members, people with criminal records who beat their wives, like all those people, if they're not American citizens, should be pushed out of the country forthwith. Also, you should actually abide by due process. I don't know why that's really particularly controversial at this point.

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$28 a month could just be the difference between life and death of so many lives. To donate securely, go to preborn.com slash dailywire. That's preborn.com slash dailywire. A single heartbeat can echo across generations. Meanwhile, in some pretty terrible news, David Horowitz died at the age of 86. I knew David really, really well. Obviously, I used to work at the David Horowitz Freedom Center Truth Revolt, which was sort of a precursor to Daily Wire began at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. But I knew David for decades.

more than a decade before that truly a formative person in the modern conservative movement, a person who spoke truth, no matter the cost. David started off as a radical communist. He wrote a book in 1998 titled Radical Son, A Generational Odyssey that talked about how he was what he called a red diaper baby, that his parents were communists. And he started off as a far leftist writing for Ramparts Magazine. He turned to the right when

his friend was killed by the Black Panthers, allegedly. And he moved to the right. Basically, all of his old friends disowned him, decided that he was untouchable. And David turned into one of the most effective conservative activists of his generation. He used to call the David Horowitz Freedom Center a battle tank rather than a think tank. Pretty much everybody who's anybody in modern conservatism had some initial connection with David Horowitz.

I remember I met Charlie Kirk, for example, at a David Horowitz Freedom Center event. This was back when Charlie was maybe 18 or 19 years old and he was first getting started with TPUSA. And that's true for a huge number of people who got their start in the conservative movement in the 90s and 2000s. Dale will very much be missed. You should read his books. He's really an amazing writer, a terrific speaker, a strong voice. There are many videos of him online that are totally worth watching. Here is just one.

Will you condemn Hamas here and now? I'm sorry, what? Will you condemn Hamas? Would I condemn Hamas? As a terrorist, or a genocide lawyer? Are you asking me to put myself on a cross? So you won't. I actually have had this experience many times. You didn't read the pamphlet, because the pamphlet is chapter and verse long.

The main connection is that the MSA is part of the Muslim Brotherhood network as revealed in the documents. I don't think you understood what I meant by that. I meant if I say something, I'm sure that I will be arrested for reasons of homeland security. So if you could please just answer my question. If you condemn Hamas, homeland security will arrest you. If I support Hamas, because your question forces me to condemn Hamas, if I support Hamas...

I look really bad. Well, if you don't condemn Hamas, obviously you're supported. Case closed. I've had this experience. I give you, I had this experience at UC Santa Barbara where there were 50 members of the Muslim Students Association sitting right in a row there. And throughout my hour talk, I kept asking them, will you condemn Hezbollah and Hamas? And none of them would.

And then when the question period came, the president of the Muslim Students Association was the first person to ask questions. And I said, you know, before you start, will you condemn Hezbollah? And he said, well, that question is too complicated for a yes/no answer. So I said, okay, I'll put it to you this way. I'm a Jew. The head of Hezbollah has said that he hopes that we will gather in Israel so he doesn't have to hunt us down globally.

For it or against it? For it. Thank you. Thank you for coming and showing everybody what's here. David was extremely clear in his approach to the world. He understood the morality of many of our foreign adversaries. He was an advocate for Americanism and American strength and security, and he'll very much be missed. Okay, meanwhile, we are actually over in Jerusalem because no surprise, no secret, I'm a big supporter of Israel, obviously. I'm a Zionist.

I'm Jewish, and so I'm here for Yom Ha'atzmaut, which is Israeli Independence Day. I was invited to light a torch, actually, to lead off Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day, and I thought it was an amazing opportunity to sit down with the brand new Trump administration ambassador to the state of Israel, Mike Huckabee. We sat down yesterday. It was a fantastic conversation. Here's what it sounded like.

Ambassador Huckabee, thank you so much for offering us the use of this office that we could actually film this. I didn't know you were going to tear it to pieces, but no, honestly, I'm thrilled you're here. It's such a pleasure to have you at your embassy in Jerusalem, and it's a delight to welcome you here. Thanks for having me. So let's talk about your history with Israel, why you wanted to be ambassador to Israel in the first place.

- I came here for the first time 52 years ago. It was 1973, July. I was 17 years old, a month away from my 18th birthday. And the story is, I grew up, I mean, literally dirt poor, little kid from Southwest Arkansas. My soon to be roommate in college grew up rather wealthy and he wanted to take a senior trip. So he asked his dad, "Dad, can I take a trip? I wanna go to the Middle East." His dad said, "Son, I'm not gonna let you go over there by yourself."

but his dad liked me. And he said, "If you'll take Mike Huckabee with you, I'll pay his way too." That's how I got to come. So we came to the Middle East. We went to Jordan, to Syria, we went to Lebanon, we went to Cyprus and Greece, we went to Turkey, and we came to Israel. And there were beautiful things to see, fascinating things to see. But then when I came to Israel,

something connected. I can't even describe it. It wasn't the visual. It wasn't that of the five senses. It was deep within my soul. And I've tried to explain it. It's the only place on earth I've ever been where I felt at home and a place I'd never visited. It was a magnetic spiritual connection. And I said, I gotta go back. I started bringing groups here in 1981, and I've brought tens of thousands of Americans to come see Israel since that time.

Been to this land probably a hundred times. I never asked the president to put me here. You know, I didn't lobby for it. There were people that he trusted who did encourage him to name me ambassador. And it's the only job in the entire administration that I would have said yes to. I didn't want to babysit some bloated bureaucracy in Washington. I didn't want to be ambassador somewhere else. But when he called, and you know the president very well,

He doesn't ask you, he doesn't say, "I'd like for you to think about, would you consider?" He calls in his classic style and says, "My Donald Trump, you're going to Israel, you're gonna be the ambassador." And that was it. And so for me, it was an Isaiah moment right out of the Old Testament, "Here am I, Lord, send me." And here am I. And I can't even begin to tell you how overwhelmed I am at the privilege of serving my president and most importantly, my country.

In this position, in one of the most difficult places on earth,

but also one of the most incredibly strategically valuable places on earth for the United States and its people. So let's talk about that for a moment. Obviously, support for Israel has become significantly more fraught in the United States, particularly since October 7th. The left obviously has moved very strongly against Israel. There are breaks in the right with regard to support for Israel. The implication has been made that only Jews are interested in supporting Israel. Obviously, you're not Jewish. We're both American, obviously. But why should Americans, and particularly non-Jewish Americans,

care about Israel? - Well, if we divorce anything spiritual from it, Jewish, Christian, which obviously there is a deep spiritual connection that I have as a Christian that you have as a Jew. Let's take that off the table. Here's why it matters. Israel is the only nation in the entire region, one of the few nations, if not the only real nation in the world that totally mirrors the experience of the birth formation and the prosperity of the United States. Both nations coming out of people who escaped

religious tyranny, economic tyranny, and in the case of the Jews, an outright Holocaust. The Jewish people have a connection to this land that goes back 3,500 years. It doesn't go back to 1917 and the Balfour Declaration. It doesn't go to 1948 and independence or, you know, when people start trying to make it of, oh, it's a century old. No, no, no, no. It's 3,500 years that the Jewish people

have been in this land. And it goes back to Abraham who, I say, wrote the title deed and said, "This is yours." Now, here's where I can't escape the biblical part. You either believe the scripture or you don't. And if you do, then you have to accept that when God gave the land, he gave it to a people and he gave it for a purpose and he gave it as a place.

And it was not nebulous and it was not ambiguous. It was very specific. So this little sliver of real estate that now is the most contested piece of property on earth has a history that goes back to a covenant that God made with the Jewish people. And I'm a person of the book. I still believe it.

But now let me go back and take those things off the table. Let's just say there never was a history. There wasn't 3,500 years ago. Abraham doesn't matter. Take that off. No nation on earth so reflects our culture and our civilization, which is a Western civilization based on a Judeo-Christian understanding of the power, the right, and the responsibility of the individual. We're not collectivist. We really believe in Western civilization, religious or not,

that the individual matters and that our liberty is personal liberty, that our responsibilities to preserve and protect and pass it on are individual responsibilities.

No other nation quite fits that mold where the people elect their own government. They can speak out against their government. And I tell people in America all the time, if you think we have divided in contentious politics, you ain't seen nothing till you come here. These people know how to fight politically and they do it politically.

almost like a blood sport. But that's democracy in action. It's what it looks like when people have freedom. They can scream at their government officials, and they do. They can write nasty things about their government officials, and they do. That's something that we share in America, that we have that level of liberty. And it is something that a lot of Americans take for granted. But if they went to most places in the world, they would not have that level of

of freedom to express themselves, even that defies and challenges the government, as long as they do it without violence and without threat. So there are a number of issues where the United States' policy in the Middle East affects Israel, and Israel's policy obviously affects the interests of the United States.

The most out of the box one is President Trump's proposal with regard to the Gaza Strip, which I love. I think that it's fascinating because I think that it's the first reflection of actual reality to maybe have entered the conversation in decades, the recognition that this strip of land, which has been taken over by Hamas and whose people largely, unfortunately, support Hamas and support at least the

the destruction of the state of Israel. That is an intransigent problem, and President Trump has acknowledged that, and then he has suggested that basically there needs to be a transformation of the Gaza Strip. What do you make of President Trump's proposal? How practical is it? How does it get done? When President Trump sort of shocked the world and said, we'll just take over Gaza, we'll rebuild it. My first thought was that Gaza should have and could have been Singapore. Instead, Hamas turned it into Haiti.

actually it makes Haiti look good. They turned it into the hell hole they did because they were not interested in building schools and mosques and hospitals and things that really helped the people. They can claim they had those things, but where they put their resources were rockets, bombs, ammunition for one purpose, not to defend themselves, but to murder Jews.

Let's not mince that. It wasn't because they thought Israel was gonna come and invade them. Heck, in 2005, Israel with their own military forcibly moved 10,000 Jews out of Gaza because Israel thought if we give it up, you know, you have a Palestinian state over there, you have the whole thing. And if one has ever seen the video from Gush Katif, you can't see that without weeping because these are Jews that have been rescued from the Holocaust

moved out of their homes, and now at the gunpoint of their own military were moved out of their homes in Gaza because Israel made what, you know, looking at it from a distance, and I'm not saying this is ambassador, I'm saying this is just a guy.

It was a horrific mistake. But they thought it was a good idea because everyone in the world tells them, if you just give up some land, you're gonna have peace. And here's what's happened. Every time they have given up land, they don't have peace, they just have less land. That's all they get out of it. And then they get more threats as people are closer to them who still have the stated intent

to murder them. And that's what Gaza was all about. It was about murdering Jews. It wasn't about building a better life for Palestinian families. And that's the great tragedy of all of this is that it could have and should have been avoided

But Hamas, not a government, it's not a standing army. It's a terrorist organization. And that's all they've ever been. That's what they've acted like. And we see the results of it. - Meanwhile, one of the other issues that the Trump administration is taking on is the Iranian nuclear program. This of course has been a burgeoning threat against Israel and against the entire region, the Saudis, UAE, and all the various other countries of the region for a couple of decades at this point.

President Trump famously called President Obama's deal on this the worst deal in history. He called it that repeatedly, the JCPOA. There's a lot of negotiations that are currently happening between the special envoy Steve Witkoff and members of the Iranian government. Some of these negotiations have been happening in Qatar. Apparently, there's now European involvement in these negotiations.

There's been some sort of different messages coming out about what the goal of the negotiations is, whether it's total denuclearization of Iran, meaning no civilian nuclear program, no nothing, or whether there will be enrichment allowed to a particular level. What should the United States' end goal be in the negotiations so as to not essentially duplicate the Obama deal?

Yeah, I think the president's words are far more important than mine for a host of reasons. Number one, he's the president. He was the only one elected last November and I was not. And I'm his representative here. So I carry his message, not mine. The president has made it very clear that his message to the Iranians is, you're not going to have a nuclear program. You're not going to be able to have the capacity for a nuclear weapon. If there is any room for them to have some type of

energy production, then there's a lot of what they've done and are doing that have nothing to do with that. That's got to be dismantled. That can't stay. You can't have it where they're still within a few weeks of being able to weaponize nuclear material. So the president, I believe, is acting in good faith, trying to give, as John Lennon would so wonderfully say in the song, give peace a chance.

We'd all love to see that. We'd love to see the Iranians come to their senses and say, you know what, we don't need a nuclear weapon, and we don't need enrichment, we don't need centrifuges, we don't need to get to 3.67 and beyond. That's not really our goal. If that happens and there's an aversion of war, wonderful. Everybody celebrates. The reality is for 46 years, the Iranians have said,

Israel is the little Satan, the US is the great Satan, we're gonna destroy Israel and annihilate it, and then we're coming after the United States. They've been very explicit that Israel is the appetizer, but we're the entree. And when Americans act like, well, it doesn't have anything to do with us, how naive are you? Do you not remember 1979 when they took American hostages from the US embassy? Do you not remember that for 46 years, they have continually

not just said, someday we might get interested in, no, they have vowed annihilate Israel and then come after the United States. So when someone's got a gun pointed at you, even if it's from a distance for that long a period of time, you're stupid not to pay attention to that. And so that's why when the president the other day on Air Force One, when he was going to Rome on Air Force One for the Pope's funeral,

And a reporter asked him, very leading question, "Are you going to let Israel drag us into a war?" Classic President Trump. He said, "Nobody's gonna drag us into anything. If the Iranians don't give up their nuclear ambitions for weapons,

I'll lead the effort. I won't be dragged into it. And I thought that that was as clear a statement that anyone could make and that it came directly from the president, I think was reassuring not only to the people of Israel, but reassuring to the people of the world that this is a regime that can't have that kind of capacity any more than you would give

car keys to a Lamborghini, and a bottle of whiskey to a 16-year-old boy. So one of the other issues that obviously comes up a lot and has been a hot issue since the creation of the modern state of Israel has been the so-called West Bank Judea and Samaria. I say so-called West Bank because that is a new name for an area that is extremely old. It's the West Bank of the Jordan River, but it was Judea and Samaria for several thousand years. So Judea and Samaria, obviously there are

multiple million Palestinian Arabs who live in these areas. There are also hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in these areas. A Palestinian state is off the table so far as the Israelis are concerned because after October 7th, which was effectively the death knell of Oslo, which again, I believe was always a foolish move. The death knell of Oslo means a Palestinian state is not in the cards in the so-called West Bank. What should the United States do regarding the sovereignty of Judea and Samaria?

I believe what the president did in his first term is sort of a clear indicator. The first thing he did, he made it very clear that it's not illegal. It's not a violation of international law for Israelis to live in Israel. That was pretty important.

maybe is not considered one of the bigger things that he did because people remember the embassy move. They remember recognizing Jerusalem as the indivisible and indigenous and permanent capital of the Jewish people, recognized the Golan Heights as sovereign territory. You know, he did a lot of things more than any other president. In fact, more than all the other presidents put together in one term. So the indication is that his policies haven't really changed.

what the timing looks like, how it all works out. It's really not the US's position. We don't make that decision, the Israelis do. And I think it's a matter of seeing how does it unfold in a way that provides a potential prosperity for Palestinian people. Here's what I don't think people understand.

There have been many efforts to bring economic prosperity to people in Judea and Samaria. And by the way, I don't use the term West Bank.

And I just won't. I know that that's the nomenclature of the day, but I find it indescriptive for one thing. And it is not the ancient, and I would say not the biblical terms for it, but even beyond that, it's not an accurate reflection of the land and its boundaries. But the attempts, a great example, several years ago, I was in Judea and I visited the Soda Stream plant that they had built, 1,100 workers there.

700 were Palestinian, 400 were Israeli. There were Jews, Muslims, there were men and women, Palestinian, Israeli, all working side by side in a place that was extraordinary because in this facility, these people were not looking at each other like enemies. They were neighbors and they worked together. Their families even socialized together because they found out that, ah, these people aren't horrible people.

Even though there were 700 Palestinians over only 400 Israelis, the Palestinians were getting the same wage the Israelis were. They weren't paid a different wage. This nonsense of apartheid and racism, I saw with my own eyes. And by the way, I was given permission to go talk to anybody in the factory. Nobody would monitor the conversation. I could ask any questions I wanted, and I did.

And I found that the Palestinians working there were ecstatic. They had four times the wage they'd ever earned ever in their lives. They had paid benefits like health insurance and paid vacation and educational benefits for their children and even meals provided while they were at work. It was something like they'd never seen before. And then the brilliant BDS movement raised its ugly head and went after SodaStream

And the result of the pressure was that SodaStream had to close that plant, move it, I think, near Netanya, but in an undisputed area where even the UN can't say it's not Israel. And the result was all those 700 Palestinians lost the best job they ever had and all the benefits and went back to live in poverty. So who won that? Who benefited from that?

And it's that kind of thing that the world never understands and doesn't see. Israelis are constantly just vilified as it's like they're trying to make life miserable. Every Israeli I know personally, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but every Israeli I know is not interested in violence and they're not interested in making life miserable for Palestinians, but they've lost their patience

with Palestinian authority leadership that says that if you kill a Jew, we'll reward you with a lifetime pension. And if you die from it, your family will get a pension. We'll name a street or a park after you. That's pay for slay. And when you create a culture that from the time a child is five, six years old, that says your greatest goal in life is to kill Jews,

I'm sorry, but that's a culture that doesn't have the right to exist next to the very people that you've been told.

one day you'll grow up and kill them. - I think that is such an important point, especially because there's so many myths out there about places like, for example, Bethlehem. You've been to Bethlehem. I've never been to Bethlehem because if I were to drive into Bethlehem, I would almost certainly be murdered. But Bethlehem itself- - I'm not standing next to you when you go, okay? I'm just telling you that. - Yeah, where are yarmulkes? - I'm not very popular there, but you, you're gonna be in trouble. - I mean, what people don't understand is, and if you've ever been here, obviously, you know that there are giant red signs outside of Bethlehem that basically say that if you are an Israeli citizen

You make a wrong turn here. The Israeli government cannot be held responsible for your safety. There is no similar sign for Arabs who drive into, from these areas, Israel. If you get past a roadblock and you go into Israel, you have a normal day and then you go back home. And so maybe you can talk a little bit about how Bethlehem has changed in the 50 years you've been visiting it. When I first came here, Bethlehem was a wonderful, hospitable community. It was made up of about 80% of Arab Christians.

They ran the best stores and not just souvenir shops with trinkets, but with some of the finest artists that made everything from olive wood furniture, olive wood art pieces for one's home. And it was just a delightful place to go. In the 80s, and then especially in the 90s, when the Muslims came in and radicalized the population, they burned out

their own Arab neighbors and really family members, if you will, closed down their shops, put them out of business. Many of them came to Jerusalem. Many of them just never had another place to be. They turned Bethlehem into a very different place where now it's 80% Muslim and it's a very different place. And it's not the kind of place that

you will feel as comfortable as once was. I'm not saying that everybody there is a radical, because that's not true. There are Christians there that love God. There are a lot of people that are not radicalized. But the leadership and the prevailing culture is dramatically different than it once was. You mentioned Oslo, and I'll give you a good example of why Americans don't get it. Under Oslo, everybody was supposed to have their holy sites protected, preserved, and accessible,

no matter whether they were Jew, Christian, Muslim. The Israelis have lived up to that. The Israelis, this is what most people have no idea. They are as protective of Muslim worship sites as they are Jewish worship sites. If you want to get in trouble with the Israeli government, be a Jew or a Christian and try to violate the sovereignty of the Dome of the Rock, the Alaska Mosque, you're going to get hurt.

And it won't be the Muslims doing it to you. It's going to be the Israeli forces that will say, you can't do this up here because we're going to respect their right to be here. I went to the tomb of Joseph, which is in Nablus. It is in sort of forbidden territory for most Jews and Christians. It's supposed to be accessible. After all, it is a holy place, certainly for Jews, but also for Christians.

And we had to go at two o'clock in the morning. There's only one trip a month that goes in, a dozen people, limited, armored vehicles, military escort. We got into Nablus at two in the morning, people burning tires in the street, throwing Molotov cocktails at our vehicle. We only were allowed to be there to go and pray in the tomb of Joseph for like 30 minutes. And then we had to get out of there

And it was a stark reminder. This is how Jews, and in this case, Jews and Christian, I was the only Christian, everybody else was Jewish. This is how they access the worship sites. But the next day I could go to the Kotel and I could look up and see Muslims who are going to their place to pray. And the Israeli government was giving every protection to them in order to do that. That's the dual reality.

sort of application of law that Israelis live with every single day. And I would say that Christians live with every single day. Well, the Trump administration, obviously, I was a big advocate for President Trump's election for many reasons. One of them is that he's the most pro-Israel president in the history of the United States. By far, we're very grateful that you're the ambassador to Israel, doing an amazing job. Thank you so much for taking the time. Ben, it has been a real pleasure. Welcome home to Yerushalayim.

Well, while Israel is celebrating Yom Ha'atzmuth, there are wildfires all around Jerusalem. I know because I'm in Jerusalem and basically everything was shut down last night because of these wildfires. I can see the smoke from the wildfires. I actually saw many of those fires even a few days ago when we were driving into Jerusalem.

Israeli Arabs or Palestinian Arabs are suspected of setting many of those fires because there were very, very high winds over the past couple of days in order to thwart Yom Ha'atzmuth festivities. Essentially, they were all shut down the night of Israeli Independence Day, required all the firefighters in the country to be activated. I mean, these are these are huge wildfires burning all around Jerusalem. Obviously, people who love the land so much that they are literally willing to set it on fire.

So those are the enemies that Israel faces even on its independence day. All right, you guys, coming up in the most bizarre judicial story of the day, a judge has now ordered the release of a suspect who attempted to firebomb a Tesla store. You won't believe the reason why. Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member. If you're not a member, become a member. Use code Shapiro. Check out for two months free on all annual plans. Click that link in the description and join us.

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