Mike Walz
Appearances
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2210 - Greta Goes To Gaza!
With all due respect, my friend Elon is terribly wrong about the one big beautiful bill. We had a long conversation yesterday. He and I spoke for, I think, more than 20 minutes on the telephone, and I extolled all the virtues of the bill, and he seemed to understand that. Elon is missing it, okay? And it's not personal.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2210 - Greta Goes To Gaza!
For him to come out and pan the whole bill is, to me, just very disappointing, very surprising, in light of the conversation I had with him yesterday.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2166 - Democrat Launches Verbal ASSAULT on Disabled Texas Governor: “HOT WHEELS”
This journalist, Mr. President, wants the world talking about more hoaxes and this kind of nonsense rather than the freedom that you're enabling. And a key part of our sovereignty is open sea lanes and knocking the crap out of terrorists, which is exactly what your team and Pete Hegseth, a good friend and fellow veteran, is leading the charge on.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2161 - NASA Astronauts Return, Trump Brokers Putin CEASEFIRE?!
How do we get some of those guys back under a rock?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2161 - NASA Astronauts Return, Trump Brokers Putin CEASEFIRE?!
How do you fight it? Well, this notion of text. I think I could kick most of their ass. I do think that. But I don't know if we're going to fall into that place where we want to, okay, we challenge you to a, you know, a WWE fight here type of thing.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2126 - Did China Just DRINK OUR MILKSHAKE?!
You were appointed by Donald Trump or named to this position by Donald Trump back in 2019. Do you have any sense of why he would put you on this list?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2207 - Can Trump STOP World War III?
Well, I agree wholeheartedly with what my dear friend Rand Paul said. I love his conviction and I share it. The national debt is the greatest threat to our national security, and deficits are a serious problem. What I think Rand is missing on this one is the fact that we are quite serious about this. This is the biggest spending cut, Shannon, in more than 30 years.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2207 - Can Trump STOP World War III?
We're going to cut over $1.5 trillion in spending. And it's a big leap forward. The last time we had a spending cut was three decades ago, and it was only $800 billion, even adjusted for inflation. This is the biggest spending cut, I think, in the history of government on planet Earth.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2133 - Democrats Plan Trump IMPEACHMENT?!
The president is doing exactly what he said on the campaign trail that he is going to do, would do. And he's delivering on that, and we're a big part of that, and we're going to do it as well. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party truly is seemingly lost. They have no rudder. They have no vision. They have no clear leader.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2133 - Democrats Plan Trump IMPEACHMENT?!
The only message they have is anti-President Trump, and we've all seen that that's a failed strategy time after time.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2162 - The Case For Derek Chauvin | Episode 2: The Incident
Saying on my phone, I don't know, some of you know this on the iPhone, they've got that little stock app. I added Tesla to it to give me a little boost during the day. 225 and dropping. So, and if you own one, if you own one, we're not blaming you. You can take dental floss and pull the Tesla thing off, you know, and take out, just telling you.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2138 - Tulsi CONFIRMED, Trump Pushes UKRAINE DEAL
You look at some of the expenditures by USAID. For instance, I uncovered over $3 million to a rap artist in Gaza producing anti-Israel, anti-Semitic songs. Is that the best use of American taxpayer dollars? I would venture not. And so one of the things that we're going to do in this hearing tomorrow, obviously, is go through what actually is the role of USAID. What should they be focused on?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2138 - Tulsi CONFIRMED, Trump Pushes UKRAINE DEAL
And frankly, what have they been focused on?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2177 - TRUMP U-TURN WIN: Tariff War Paused, China Isolated!
We know from Scripture and from nature that men are men, and women are women, and men cannot become women.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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 want to go to the Middle East.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
His dad said, son, I'm not going to 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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
He calls in his classic style and says, Mike, Donald Trump, you're going to Israel. You're going to 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
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
in this position and 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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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,
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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,
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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 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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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 freedom to express themselves, even that defies and challenges the government, as long as they do it without violence and without threat.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
When President Trump sort of shocked the world and said, we'll just take over Gaza, we'll rebuild it. You know, 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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
And we see the results of it.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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, 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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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 vowed, not just said, someday we might get interested in, no, they have vowed, annihilate Israel, and then come after the United States.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
Classic President Trump. He said, nobody's going to 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,
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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 it's not considered one of the bigger things that he did because people remember the embassy move.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
What the timing looks like, how it all works out, it's really not the U.S. '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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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,
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
I was in Judea and I visited the SodaStream plant that they had built, 1,100 workers, 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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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? Nobody.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
And it's that kind of thing that the world never understands and doesn't see. Israelis are constantly just vilified. 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
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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, will name a street or a park after you. That's pay for slay.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
I'm not standing next to you when you go, OK? I'm just telling you that. I wear a yarmulke.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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, you know, trinkets, but with some of the finest things. 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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
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.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
That's the dual sort of application of law that Israelis live with every single day. And I would say that Christians live with every single day.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2190 - The Biggest Danger To The Trump Administration
Ben, it has been a real pleasure. Welcome home to Yerushalayim.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
These poor people, those that are still alive, will have been held longer than the Iranians held our hostages in 1979 with the Carter to Reagan transition. That's totally unacceptable. And I think writ large, there has never been enough consequences. And that's what we need to be talking about with these people.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And now they're right back to where they were and they're selling 90 percent of that oil to China. And as President Trump said on the campaign trail in his first term, he looked at China and said, you got to stop buying from them or you can't buy from us. I mean, foreign policy speak, that would be secondary sanctions on Chinese buyers, refiners, shippers of Iranian oil.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
So that's something we'll take a hard look at. The House already passed those sanctions. They've been sitting on Schumer's desk like a whole lot of other things that could have helped out Israel in the last couple of years. Those secondary sanctions have been sitting there for over a year. Right. So it is the cash. It's the nuclear program. And you're right.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Israel has taken decisive action to extinguish this vaunted ring of fire that was threatening him.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
My wife is a Jordanian Catholic, so yeah, whose mother came through Ellis Island Christian persecution, you know. decades and decades ago.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I think they're good. I think they're good. I think it's a natural next step. I think if there had been the second Trump term was in 2020, I believe we'd already be there. You know, The reordering was focusing on Iran as the common enemy, that they are, and their malfeasance, their malicious behavior versus putting the Palestinian issue right in the center.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I firmly believe when, if you remember the interview with Brett Baier and Mohammed bin Salman, when he held up and said, we are this close, that Iran saw that as the existential threat that it was and lit the match with Hamas that, October 7th and that horrific massacre and put that issue right back into the center. We've had a lot of good discussions with the Saudis, the normalization.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
The pieces of it are there. I frankly need to really unpack a lot of the details. So we're in the process of doing that. But I think the overall prospects of moving that relationship forward get our people out, get the issue of Gaza to a better place, at least for now, and then we absolutely are talking about a broader deal, which will be just generational and transformative.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And listen, I just want to take a step back for a moment, Ben, because I have to do this all the time as a member of Congress. Why do my supporters in Northeast St. Johns County in Florida, why does this matter to them in their everyday lives? Number one, if Iran gets a nuke, the Saudis are going to want a nuke, the Turks are going to want a nuke, if the Middle East exploding, not literally, but
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
but figuratively uh in a nuclear arms race should scare every american uh this isn't this isn't uh world war iii with them flying between the united states and the soviet union but if you ever have nukes going regionally that is that is catastrophic for the world number two israel is our critical ally both morally uh historically and i think geopolitically and we should believe in ayatollah
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
who intends to wipe Israel off the face of the earth if they have nukes. And then number three, we can't take our eye off the ball of ISIS and terrorism.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And with the withdrawal from Afghanistan that now is essentially Osama bin Laden's dream, and we haven't even talked about what's simmering over there, what happens over there, will not stay over there, but to have another ISIS caliphate that we have to clean up again. I mean, those are all our critical issues. national interest.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And I always want to take it back to that because, you know, as I'm in my town halls and we're talking Drew's and this, you know, like, look, why does this, you know, I'm a mechanic. I'm going week to week. I'm trying to get my kids off to school. You know, why does this matter to them?
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And that, you know, all of those things matter, not to mention things like 80 percent of global shipping having to be diverted because of a ragtag bunch of terrorists that, you know, we couldn't take on in the Red Sea. So.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
So I thought I was already kind of in fourth gear on the Armed Services Committee and a subcommittee chairman there of readiness on Intel, the Intelligence Committee in the House, the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Oversight Committee. And then I had this little thing called the Assassination Task Force, you know, added on as an additional duty. But what?
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Chinese money going to Tehran, buying their oil for cents on the dollar, and then the drones flying into Russia and the missiles going into Russia that we're then spending against in Ukraine and the terrorism that's exploded across the Middle East. I mean, one could argue it's our money with our trade.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
with our trade deficit going into China, going into Iran, then flowing into Russia in the Middle East. So it's one of the reasons the president is so focused on these trade deficits because it's really, in many ways, our money from our market that's flowing around the world and then often our adversaries are using against us that we then have to spend against in our own defense budget.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Yeah, literally said, we're not going to define it. It's up to them. Right.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I think we have an inherent interest in how that ends.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And I never, I mean, behind closed doors, in, you know, compartmented facilities or even publicly, you can never get that answer. As we were really having that last funding debate, I mean, there were a number of Republicans who had been, you know, got to stop Putin, can't let him roll through Ukraine and hit NATO and and then suck us in that way and wanted to vote for it.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
But said you you refuse to define what the end state is in line with our interests. You refuse to define the strategy to achieve that end state and then what resources that are needed for that strategy. In the military, it's ends, ways, and means, right? The goal, the strategy to achieve the goal, and the resources needed for the strategy, all they just wanted to talk about was more money. Right.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And stop asking us these annoying questions like, where is this all going? And I do think it's a valid question. I certainly get asked by my constituents. Is it in America's national interest to expect every Russian off of every inch of Ukraine, including Crimea? How long is that going to take? How much money is that going to cost? How many lives will be lost?
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
It is that even a realistic goal at this point? Valid question, something we're certainly talking about. And, you know, it's really now
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
since President Trump gave me the honor of nominating me as his national security advisor, I found three more gears that I didn't know I had and working with a man that is in 10th gear. He has not... He has... hitting the ground running. I've never seen anything like him. His engine just does not stop. And it's part of it's keeping up with him. Part of it's building the team.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
the president's been very clear the war's got to end what's been interesting is to see all of the shifts both european leaders ukrainians everyone of now adopting that framework so part of my job and our job with the team he's put together is who's at the table how do we get people to the table and then what's the framework uh for an agreement that best you know meets our interests
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
But I guess what I just want to kind of foot stomp here is we've seen everybody's narrative go from as long as it tanks, blank check, don't dare say anything else or you're somehow pro-Russian to... How do we get this to a deal? How do we get this to it? Just from the Trump effect, right? Since he was elected, we saw that in Paris when he just went over.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
We've seen that from everybody who's come to see it. One of the first people that we had at Mar-a-Lago was the NATO Secretary General, and that's where he was. But I think the broader pieces that have been also missing are energy policy. We start flooding the world with, by the way, cleaner energy. American oil and gas and you're driving down prices.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Now you're taking options away from Iran, Russia, Venezuela, or other adversaries. And oh, by the way, people should be buying from us, not them. I had lunch with the Speaker of the Parliament of Lithuania right there on the front line. She said, I buy 85% of my gas from Louisiana and Texas. You now have an LNG ban. What do you want me to do? Right. I mean, you're leaving me no option.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
It was it was a bit insane. So better energy policy, better sanctions enforcement and burden sharing from our NATO allies are just pieces that have been absolutely missing. It's gotten better with NATO, but it's like it's like patting an F student on the head for getting a D. They should have been at 100 percent back in 2014 the first time. Russia invaded when they pledged to do it.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And now, for example, Canada is on track to achieve the minimum by 2032. It's just it's completely unacceptable. We should be celebrating three, four or five percent like Poland and the Baltics are doing, not achieving the minimum in 10 years.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And part of it is really having a lot of conversations about how we're going to conform the system to his style. Frankly, I think some of my predecessors who were who were great tried to conform him to the kind of the national security apparatus. And that just did not work for a lot of reasons.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
But at the same time, on the Russia piece, though, they are transforming their economy to a full-on, I mean, to a North Korea-style wartime economy. And they are just grinding, grinding and grinding forward. So we just have to be cognizant of what's happening. The RuPaul is in trouble. Other things seem to be in trouble. But, you know, Putin sees this as a legacy defining moment.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And we've got to get both sides of the table.
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The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
The entire national security community.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Yeah, the microchips, but it's also the shipping lanes.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Right. And that's what, you know, people look at a map and they see mainland China and this little island over there. And like, why are we why are we so worried about it?
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
But if you if you really look closely, you see about 90% of the world's largest shipping flowing through the Taiwan Strait, about 50% of global shipping that are flowing all within proximity of Taiwan that feeds 50% of the global economy between Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and of course, the Chinese Taiwan market.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
You take an American, you illegally detain them if you're a nation state or if you're a terrorist, you hold them hostage. There is going to be all hell to pay. There are going to be nothing but consequences for you financially and maybe even a bullet in your damn forehead if you take an American, period.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And then coordinating with the fantastic team that he's putting together between Pam Bondi and Marco Rubio and Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard and crew to really make sure we are all on the same page with him going forward. So it's a lot.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
So look, I think that what, again, what President Trump knows is that a lot of the world, including China, needs our market, needs our economy more than we need theirs. So that is a, and you've already seen him truth out, tariffs. If we don't start changing some things, particularly on fentanyl, production, number one. Number two, we have to get reduced dependency on those supply chains.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
A lesson from COVID was cheap everything isn't always better. Even little things like mask gowns and gloves. But when it comes to our pharmaceuticals, when it comes to chips, when it comes to critical minerals, Governor Burgum is going to be hot on. We have all of those things here in the Western Hemisphere. If we would only get out of our own way with this permitting
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
you know, ridiculous maze of state, local and federal permitting requirements to get the stuff out of the ground. So supply chain reduction, our markets One of the lessons we should learn from Ukraine is you don't try to arm your allies after they've been invaded.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
You maybe arm them before to prevent the invasion in the first place, and we'll certainly be looking to clear the backlog when it comes to things that Taiwan is looking to purchase and that were required by law to help provide them. Enhancing our allies, one of the great things that
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
President Trump did in the first term was reinvigorate the Quad, the United States, Japan, Australia, and India, which is also going to be a critical partner in all of this, rebuilding our own military so that it's a deterrent, recognizing what China has continued to do and what I believe is the largest and most rapid military modernization since we've seen since the 1930s with Germany, tripling their nuclear arsenal, a navy that's now larger than ours,
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
cranking out ships at a rate of three to five to one compared to us. But ultimately, it is going to be, is Xi, as he looks at his own economic situation, does he slow down to deal with things, his demographic problems and their indebtedness and other issues? Or does he try to speed up to distract from those problems? And that's something we have to keep a very close eye on.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
But and it's not exactly like, as you said, the world is going to sit back and wait for us to get this kind of all together and have a transition with the Biden people. As we just saw with Syria there, the world continues to spin.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
But all of those pieces, I think, will be critical from the economic to the supply chain, to our allies, to Taiwan's in particular, and to the state of our own military.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And so I thought it was don't don't don't don't.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Yeah. Well, just two other key pieces, and this is globally, but also particularly when it comes to China, and that's space and then cyber. And in all the war games, the first shots, and sometimes they're just checkmate before anything even begins, are in space and in cyber.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And in space, look, this is why everybody made fun, everybody had their jokes in the Netflix series on the creation of the Space Force. Again, another instinct that President Trump had that, you know, there were resistors within his administration. A couple of people got fired by tweet. And then we, you know, the Pentagon actually saw some accountability for a change and,
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
got on board with their elected commander in chief. But incredibly important, and just a statistic on why Elon and what he's done with SpaceX is so important. In 2018, the Chinese launched more into space than us and the rest of the world combined, just six years ago. Last year, SpaceX launched 80% of the global tonnage. And that's before Starship even comes fully
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
online, which is going to take it by 10 to 100 to even a thousand X if he starts launching one per week over the next couple of years. So that is critical for what's up there. And for everybody out there saying, why the hell do I care? You touch space seven, eight times a day before 7 a.m. or seven, eight times before 7 a.m. You don't even realize our entire modern economy
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
agriculture uh... obviously global finance telecommunications how we get around but how the world gets around shipping the military what have you with the gps systems uh... the chinese know that are developing capabilities to take it out which would send our economy and we have to be able to defend uh... what's up there and what he's doing uh... in terms of you know
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
A few years ago, they could take out a few big satellites, big battleship satellites that we had up there. Now, when you've got thousands of little ones circling around, you can't take them all out. And then in cyber, I think we just have to completely rethink it. Right now, we're totally on defense and we keep trying to get better and better on defense.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And the analogy I use back in the 50s, when you had the rise of nuclear ICBMs, we didn't respond to the Soviets by building better and better missile defenses. We responded by building better and better offense so that we both understood mutually assured destruction to keep the peace. We're not doing that in cyber. We're just totally focused on playing defense.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And I think we need to change our doctrine when it comes to offense because the Chinese are clearly not getting the message to knock it off. And when they shift as they recently did from spying and stealing to putting cyber time bombs in our critical infrastructure, the Volt Typhoon systems or malware that was discovered.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
To me, that was a red line that was crossed, and we need to deal with it with a new doctrine.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
He's the first foreign leader to come visit. He's amazing.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Well, look, I think from a broad sense, we have all the food, all of the critical minerals, all of the energy that we need in our hemisphere if we would only pay more attention to it. This administration is still buying uranium from Russia with all kinds of sanction waivers and still having that dependency when you've got uranium in Canada. You have uranium in Saudi Arabia.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
You have uranium in other places. So as we look at a new energy policy, if we look at unleashing our gas, if we look at going with small modular reactors, we have a lot of the critical minerals that we need both for our computer chips, for our energy supplies, for our modern economy, all here. And we need... better trade deals, better partners.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I think a deregulation regime right here in the United States and people are ready to deal. They're ready to come to the table. I'm really excited about this relationship with Argentina. It could be, I mean, you want to talk about having some real fundamentals that could be there. I think you should spend an entire show just unpacking how Melee has done it so fast, despite the odds.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I mean, everybody laughed when he had his famous afuera afuera with all of these agencies. He's actually done it. He still needs some help in terms of his currency, and he still needs some help.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
in terms of its predecessors that got so dependent on China for so many things, like space tracking stations right there in the mountains that they were literally ceding away Argentine territory in China's debt diplomacy. We fully plan to help them in doing that.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Well, look, I want to be clear, and I've said this multiple times publicly, our adversaries should not see this as a moment of opportunity. You can't play mom against dad. You can't play the administrations off from each other. I'm in regular contact
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I think the other piece is as we talk about decoupling some critical supply chains from China, of course, we want them to come right back to the United States with American jobs. But if it doesn't make business sense, how about we get them in the Western Hemisphere? How about you incentivize some of these kind of, you know, you know, lower skilled, high output factories into Central America?
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
You know, you know, Kamala Harris wanted to just throw aid down that hole down there with a lot of corruption and a lot of gangs and cartels that actually made the problem worse. How about we incentivize some production there and start helping those economies turn around? Now we're solving our supply chain problem in many ways. We're getting it in the Western hemisphere.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
You're getting at your migration issue. And then the president's been very clear we're going to have a deportation regime. And for countries that want to do business with us, they need to take their people back. That needs to be first and foremost in our policy. So all of those pieces I think you're going to see coming together. And what's great is you've got Stephen Miller, who's an expert.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
You've got Holman, who's going to do it. And you have a secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who is a rare candidate. I think a rare leader that's really invested in the relationships down there over 20, 30 years of his career understands the complex dynamic is going to spend the time on it. Everybody just gets sucked in the Middle East and into Europe and into Asia.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
But I think you have a secretary of state that is really going to be focused on it. You're going to see a difference.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
So what you're asking, if you renamed those cartels from Sinaloa and Jalisco to ISIS and Al Qaeda, and they were pumping chemicals into our inner cities and infiltrating cells into our cities and taking over swaths of them, It would even be a debate, right? So, I mean, the president has been clear. We are going to take these cartels on.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
With my counterpart, Jake Sullivan, we don't agree on all things by no means, but we are talking, we are coordinating, and we'll continue to do that all the way through January 20th. Yeah, look, I mean, it's just kind of a statement of common sense. There's only one president at a time.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
That doesn't mean, as the media likes to spin it, or probably even spin that statement of we're sending the 2nd Marine Division into Mexico City, no. But we have a lot of tools to support law enforcement in a much more forceful way with cyber, with sanctions, even with space assets and others, with the more focused intelligence.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
to not only help the American, I mean, to help the Mexicans, but to help our own law enforcement. We cannot have a situation where these paramilitary organizations that are fighting the Mexican army, not police, army, to a standstill with heavy armored vehicles, shooting down helicopters, controlling huge swaths of our border, and to some estimates, 20, 30, 40% of the territory of our neighbor.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Enough is enough. And I think the president and the team around him is ready to take the gloves off.
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The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Yeah, from a redneck kid from the west side of Jacksonville. Yeah, it's kind of a pinchy moment. Look, I served, I went to Virginia Military Institute. I served 27 years, a lot of it in the reserves, in special forces. I don't know, many people realize both the Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets have reserve units. So I kind of have a day job. I built a company.
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The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I worked in the Bush administration and the Pentagon. I had to be one of the only idiots that was writing the strategy, briefing the strategy. Then I would get mobilized with my reserve unit and have to go actually do the strategy and out there with my guys who would then say, who the hell thought this was a good idea? Yeah. Right.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
The interesting part, Ben, would then be taking the uniform off, coming back into the kind of policy apparatus. and saying, hey boss, this isn't working. I was just out there on the ground. You're getting fed a line of crap from the kind of blob and try to fix it. So I did that back and forth a number of times. And both worked in the White House, worked in the Pentagon, worked out in industry.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I've got more scar tissue from contracting officers in government and trying to do business with our own government than I do from the Taliban and brought all those experiences to bear, I think, in Congress when I ran for Ron DeSantis' seat when he ran for governor. So that was the kind of the trajectory.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And I saw with President Trump that his instincts on so many things were absolutely right, whether it was the pivot on China, whether it was, hey, we can we can shift to focus on Iran rather than Palestinians and bring people together in the Middle East, whether it was Europe. You've got the same size economy the United States does.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
The world is still dealing with this administration, but they obviously are looking to President Trump and seeing how he responds to all things. And on some things, he absolutely wanted to make his voice known, like the truth that came out on the hostages. Enough is enough.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
stop, you know, this great deal you've got with we're paying for your defense while you pay for your social programs. And so I've been 100 percent on on on board with his America First agenda. And you look at what he got done on the Abraham Accords, on China, on the border, on, you know, all kinds of reforms in the military that we've been asking for for years. Now, I think he
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
He gave me the nod to help pull all of that together for him. On the book, first, the proceeds go to the Green Berets that I lost. And nobody hates wars more than people that have to go fight them, right? Much less endless ones that become this, you know, ever, you know... I don't know, grind and policy drift of funerals and people that were feeding into it. So that's a piece.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
The other piece is Green Berets are a little bit different. The SEALs, the Rangers are some of the best in the world. We can do it too. Two bullets in the forehead, middle of the night, Salma bin Laden raid, in and out, lightning strike, and that son of a bitch is done. We stay a lot longer. We have to learn multiple languages, local cultures, blend in.
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The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And you take five or six of us, put us in a valley, put us in a village. We'll train tens of thousands of them to kick in doors for us. So we're that force multiplying effect. And we specialize in regions of the world, all over the world. Case in point, drop a few Green Berets in after 9-11. Before you know it, they're riding on horseback in Afghanistan, out in the mountains of Afghanistan.
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The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Less than a couple hundred Green Berets overthrew the entire regime and kicked al-Qaeda out. And then we had 20 years of policy drift from that. But that's what we do, and that's what we do differently. And that is a different mindset. And that's what I write about in the book.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
If we can herd the tribes in Africa or of Afghanistan, then I can herd the tribes in Congress and in Washington, D.C., although I think D.C. was a little tougher sometime. So that each chapter is a different attribute. I tell a story that, you know, what I learned downrange in combat, how I've applied it now to this job. and how I think we need to think differently.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And President Trump often thinks very differently and very unconventionally about these issues. We're, you know, Green Berets are kind of the masters of unconventional warfare, psychological operations, by, with, and through proxies or allies or others. And so it's gotten a great reception, and I think, you know, I hope people take a look at it.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
By the time January 20th comes around, these poor people, those that are still alive, will have been held longer than the Iranians held our hostages in 1979 with the Carter to Reagan transition. That's totally unacceptable. And I think writ large, there has never been enough consequences. And that's what we need to be talking about with these people.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Well, I'll just, you know, look, I'll tell you For people out there, and look, there's a lot of good and great case officers out in CIA or civil servants or FBI agents that are out there doing bad things to bad guys. It's often in that kind of Washington leadership where they get ensconced and really believe that they know better than the person that was elected.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And that's not kind of a middle finger to him. That's a middle finger to the 70, 80 million Americans who put him there. It's not like he's playing a bait and switch. Wasn't like he was totally transparent about what he wants to do and why we need to do it.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And the mandate that he's received in the popular vote in all seven swing states are not something that I don't think any bureaucrat needs to just think they can outweighed or outlast or throw sand in the gears. That said. At the same time, our government has become bloated. It's become too large. It is completely focused on inputs.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
You know, the reflexive response, whether it's the Pentagon State Department, you name the bureaucracy to a priority. Well, I need more people and more money to throw at it with the interest in our debt exceeding now the entire defense budget and growing. that does not work anymore. And I think the president is focused on outputs.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
The team, whether it's Doge and Elon and Vivek and others are focused on outputs. What are the American people getting for all of this money? And that, like any business, man or woman, needs to be, you know, what are the metrics? What are the outputs? What are we getting? What can be done more efficiently? And if you think about it that way, you should be getting on board.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
What I fear a little bit is that the most dangerous bureaucrat is one that's afraid for their paycheck right and If you're throwing sand in the gears if you're leaking if you think you know better just because you disagree You know
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
you need to look at the people across a wide swath, Hispanic, African-American, Jewish, you name it, that said, we want to go in the direction President Trump wants to go. And just always, always keep that in mind. And as an elected president, I think too many people lose sight of that. They really do. And so I've told senior officials in the Pentagon and elsewhere, come with me to a town hall.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Come with me to a town hall or someone from USAID and tell a group of first responders why we need to pay first responders in another country and not them. Go ahead, explain that, right? That's a difficult conversation that I've told people. If you think we're tough in hearings, Come with me down and talk to our constituents who have very real questions. It's their money, right?
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
It's their lives that we're taking from and that we owe it back to them to give them the most efficient government possible and one that is in line with their elected leaders' interests, period.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
you take an american you illegally detain them if you're a nation state or if you're a terrorist you hold them hostage there is going to be all hell to pay there are going to be nothing but consequences for you financially and maybe even a bullet in your damn forehead if you take an american period and so that the next time you think about it You know what?
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
A lot of these groups are going to say, whoa, it's just not worth it under Donald Trump. They'll go try to mess with America somewhere else, but not when it comes to taking our people. Enough is enough, and I think that truth spoke for itself.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I just think him as a person and as a president has been transparent. But, you know, just one more thing on the hostage piece, right? Whether it... Whether... I mean, you name the bad actor. All they've seen is upside from taking our people. Right. And so what's the incentive? Take more people and get more for it. We need them to see nothing but downside.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And we are going to be sure they see nothing but downside. President Trump's a dealmaker. He's a business guy. He understands incentives. And if the bad guys are incentivized to take more because they keep getting more, then they're going to keep doing it. If the bad guys feel nothing but cost and pain for taking our people, they're going to stop doing it. Right.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
This isn't, as you just said, this isn't like overly complicated grand Kissingerian theory here. Right. It's about costs and consequences and incentives. And then on the broader side, you know, kind of Trump foreign policy or Trump approach. It is constantly bottom line up front. What is in America's interest? What is America getting out of this?
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The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
What is America having to get up, give up to get this? And that's what they're like. We can be friends and allies and have tough conversations, whether that's on trade or whether that's on some geostrategic issue like, you know, the South China Sea. And then finally, look, he sees our biggest lever. as our economy and in our markets, right? Of course, we have to have a big stick.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Of course, we have to have a military that I don't know is actually focused on lethality and not social justice, and that is capable of stepping in when needed. But his first go to is going to be, hey, can we let's resolve this economically? Let's resolve this diplomatically. Let's resolve this with thing that most countries care about, which is their wallets.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
and then we'll talk about if we need to step in with any type of military force, and when we do, like the Soleimani hit, it's going to be precise, it's going to be very little collateral damage, and it's going to be strategic.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Well, I'll talk about the Iran piece in a moment, but on Syria, just because it's kind of top of mind right now, I want to be crystal clear. America's interest here are the tens of thousands of ISIS fighters that are holed up right now thanks to the actions President Trump took In his first term, remember the ISIS caliphate, attacks all over Europe, inspired attacks across the United States.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I mean, they were dominating a space the size of Texas across the Middle East. This was Osama bin Laden and al-Baghdadi's grand dream that was actually realized, and it was horrific. President Trump cleaned it up, but the simmering leftover peace was now literally tens of thousands of fighters and families that are sitting in prison camps,
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The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
guarded by our friends the Kurds, supported by us, and we can't have that unleashed again. That's our key interest. Number one, ISIS. Number two, Israel and its borders. They're taking aggressive action right now.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
They took the rest of Golan, finally, and are hitting key sites that we don't want following, excuse me, into terrorist hands, like chemical weapons factories, like missile factories, you know, things like that.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Sea Force, yes. Yeah, exactly. So to keep that at bay. And then thirdly, look, there's this dynamic with our Arab partners there that we just have to keep an eye on. So President Trump is absolutely right. His mandate overwhelmingly was do not drag us into Middle Eastern wars. We do not need American boots running around Syria in any way, shape or form. But we're keeping an eye on those things.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
ISIS, Israel's border and kind of the broader dynamic with our Gulf allies. And all of this has been unleashed because of what Israel and its leadership under Bibi Netanyahu did to Hezbollah, the pager and walkie-talkie op. There's going to be some amazing movie about that one day. I think one of the gutsiest, most effective covert action ops in modern history.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Because of that, taking down Hezbollah that everybody said couldn't be done and would be too provocative. exposing Iran's air defenses so that they literally are naked right now and on their back foot.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And then importantly, I think that's being overlooked, is hitting their finances across the region and the money that has been flowing out of Tehran into Beirut, into its proxies in Syria and elsewhere. And I hope all of this has Hamas so isolated. They really thought the cavalry was coming from the north with Hezbollah.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Now that that is shown not to be true, Hamas has every exit blocked except one, and that's to release our hostages if you want to live.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
That's fair. The Houthis are still an outstanding issue.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I guarantee one thing you're going to see is a redesignation of them for what they are as a terrorist organization. And I'm standing on the House floor month after month. as the Democrats were just railing on the Saudis, railing on the Trump administration. Right. You know, Yemen, Yemen, Yemen. And it was a humanitarian, absolutely humanitarian crisis. But I don't see a lot of them.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
I think there's maybe been one or two that kind of said that maybe we were wrong on that one.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Talk about an inflationary action, but 80% of shipping is having to divert all the way around South Africa, so the Suez Canal didn't exist.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
Yeah, is this a moment where the Ayatollah, who is not in good health and is looking at his own secession, is this a moment where they say, we are completely exposed, therefore we rush towards a nuke? Or is this a moment they say we are completely exposed? Don't provoke the Israelis by rushing towards a new and and and we'll see which way they go.
The Ben Shapiro Show
The Trump Effect | Congressman Mike Waltz
And then I don't I don't want to get too much in revealing our cards and revealing our hand. But. We're watching very closely. What President Trump has been clear on is that the other thing they care the most about is their cash. And I mean, they went from exporting four million barrels a day to less than 400,000 under the maximum pressure campaign.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2110 - We’re BACK!
Are there individuals that are affiliated with ISIS and terrorist groups and organizations that have crossed the border that are inside the United States? Director Ray, FBI director, has said so. We certainly have intelligence that says so. I agree with his assessment. Jim has also seen it. He's testified before our committee publicly of that fact.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2110 - We’re BACK!
Those individuals are working in conjunction with ISIS with the intention of harming Americans. The director has said it directly.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2110 - We’re BACK!
And we are working diligently to try to take them down to prevent them from doing so. And that's why the director is publicly saying such. And that's what the new administration is going to be handed. The fact that these individuals are here, that we need to locate them, we need to remove them, we need to bring them to justice and prevent them from doing harm to Americans.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2144 - More Trump WINS: Joy Reid GONE!
Who would you rather have go toe-to-toe with the likes of Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Xi, or anyone else? Joe Biden or Donald Trump? He's the dealmaker-in-chief, he's the commander-in-chief, and it's only because of his strength. that were even in this position. And President Trump's own words have been that Russia invaded a neighbor under Bush, under Obama and under Biden, but not him.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2144 - More Trump WINS: Joy Reid GONE!
It didn't happen his first term and he's going to bring it to an end his second term.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2159 - Trump SOARS in Polling, UNLEASHES On Houthis!
These were not kind of pinprick back and forth, what ultimately proved to be feckless attacks. This was an overwhelming response that actually targeted multiple Houthi leaders and took them out.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2159 - Trump SOARS in Polling, UNLEASHES On Houthis!
Well, all options are always on the table with the president, but Iran needs to hear him loud and clear. It is completely unacceptable and it will be stopped. The level of support that they've been providing the Houthis.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2159 - Trump SOARS in Polling, UNLEASHES On Houthis!
They can either hand it over and give it up in a way that is verifiable, or they can face a whole series of other consequences. But either way, we cannot have a world with the ayatollahs with their finger on the nuclear button, We cannot have a situation that would result in an arms race across the Middle East in terms of nuclear proliferation.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2159 - Trump SOARS in Polling, UNLEASHES On Houthis!
And President Trump is determined one way or another. Iran has been offered a way out of this.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Trump’s Team: Best Ben Shapiro Show Moments
I went to Virginia Military Institute. I served 27 years, a lot of it in the reserves in Special Forces. Many people realize both the Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets have reserve units. So I kind of have a day job. I built a company. I worked in the Bush administration and the Pentagon. I had to be one of the only idiots that was writing the strategy, briefing the strategy.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Trump’s Team: Best Ben Shapiro Show Moments
Then I would get mobilized with my reserve unit and have to go actually do the strategy and out there with my guys who would then say, who the hell thought this was a good idea? Yeah, right. The interesting part, Ben, would then be taking the uniform off, coming back into the kind of policy apparatus. and saying, hey boss, this isn't working. I was just out there on the ground.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Trump’s Team: Best Ben Shapiro Show Moments
You're getting fed a line of crap from the kind of blob and try to fix it. So I did that back and forth a number of times. And both worked in the White House, worked in the Pentagon, worked out in industry.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Trump’s Team: Best Ben Shapiro Show Moments
I've got more scar tissue from contracting officers in government and trying to do business with our own government than I do from the Taliban and brought all those experiences to bear, I think, in Congress when I ran for Ron DeSantis' seat when he ran for governor. So that was the kind of the trajectory.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Trump’s Team: Best Ben Shapiro Show Moments
And I saw with President Trump that his instincts on so many things were absolutely right, whether it was the pivot on China, whether it was, hey, we can we can shift to focus on Iran rather than Palestinians and bring people together in the Middle East, whether it was Europe. You've got the same size economy the United States does.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Trump’s Team: Best Ben Shapiro Show Moments
stop, you know, this great deal you've got with we're paying for your defense while you pay for your social programs. And so I've been 100 percent on on board with his America First agenda. And you look at what he got done on the Abraham Accords, on China, on the border, on, you know, all kinds of reforms in the military that we've been asking for for years. Now, I think he
The Ben Shapiro Show
Trump’s Team: Best Ben Shapiro Show Moments
He gave me the nod to help pull all of that together for him. On the book, first, the proceeds go to the Green Berets that I lost. And nobody hates wars more than people that have to go fight them.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2143 - The True Faces Of Evil
with President Zelensky that you've heard is multifold. One, there needs to be a deep appreciation for what the American people, what the American taxpayer, what President Trump did in his first term, and what we've done since. So some of the rhetoric coming out of Kyiv, frankly, and insults to President Trump were unacceptable, number one. Number two,
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2143 - The True Faces Of Evil
Our own Secretary of Treasury personally made the trip to offer the Ukrainians what can only be described as a historic opportunity. That is for America to co-invest with Ukraine in their minerals, in their resources, to truly grow the pie.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
Yeah, you know, and I talk to the president about this daily. I do think that's the ultimate end game here is that, you know, we have huge disparities really since World War II, since we became the last great superpower. We had the responsibility of the free world placed upon our shoulders, and that's fine.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
America has an exceptional place and a lot of responsibility, but other countries deemed our power inferior. to be an excuse for them to have trade disparity with us. So we've got huge imbalances with lots of countries, even close allies. President Trump is coming in and using common sense. He's saying to these countries, this isn't post-World War II, it's far beyond that now.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
We need to have free and fair trade. And I think that's going to be the ultimate result. And as you said, I think the reciprocal trade will fix the imbalances. I think they'll bring down these huge disparities from the other countries and we'll get back to an actual free trade scenario. That's going to be good for America.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
And he is making our allies respect America again for the first time in a long time. And that's long overdue.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
So good to be with you my friend. Thanks for all you do. Thanks a lot.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
Well, it's a team effort. It really is. We do a lot of work to keep everybody on the same page, and it pays off when we do that. This is another example of that. When the Republican Party sticks together, we can get big things done. And this is a big thing. Look, we funded the government. It's a relatively clean CR, except that it has a couple of innovations.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
We plussed up defense spending and we reduced non-defense spending in small amounts. But it was important. That's exactly what the Trump administration needed to give them flexibility to do what they need to do. We are freezing funding. This is a year over year decrease in funding, Ben. And that's the first time anybody can remember that that's happened. So, you know, I keep making the analogy.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
We have an aircraft carrier. That's what the federal budget is. Right. And it's taken decades to get into the situation we're in. We're going to turn it. But you don't turn an aircraft carrier on a dime. It takes miles of open ocean. So this is an important turn.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
And then when we get to the next FY26, the next fiscal year budget, which we're about to begin immediately after FY25 is done, then it gets real because then the doge cuts are included, the new revenue streams that the president announced. and the administration are bringing about become a part of that. And we're going to be in a totally different situation. So we're excited.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
It's a good day for America. And I certainly hope the Senate does the right thing here.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
Well, they're going well. Look, we did our work in the House. We have to lead on this. I've told my Senate colleagues, while there are different ideas on how to achieve the ultimate objective, it has to be all in one bill. Why? Because if Lindsey Graham's strategy played out, and Lindsey's my friend, we've had a fun discussion about this, okay? But if you take...
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
energy, border and defense spending, and you do that separately, of course, every Republican will vote for that. That's the easy stuff. But we need that as sweetener on the larger package. Why? Because we have tax to do. And that's very complicated. We've got to check a lot of boxes, all of our campaign promises, all in one big, beautiful bill. But it's going along well, Ben.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
And I want to point out the House began this process a year ago. It was last March. When I brought in all the committee chairs, deputize them to start thinking about reconciliation, put their priorities together. And we've done that. So we're methodically working through the process. What will happen is over the next four or five weeks, we'll put all this together.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
We'll meet the equilibrium point amongst all the Republicans and their various representatives. priorities and concerns. We'll send it to the Senate. And I'm hopeful, Ben, we can get this to the president's desk for signature before Memorial Day, hopefully early May. Why is that so important?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
Because we have to allow the American people to see the results of all this good policy before the midterm elections and in time to give them relief that they desperately need.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
Yeah, I mean, so this is the Senate parliamentarian ultimately that makes a decision on this. The way it works, all this is kind of a legal fiction, Ben, really. But if the chairs of the two chambers in the budget committees agree that this is permanent policy, that we use current policy baseline, then it makes the tax cuts that we're going to extend permanent and extends it beyond 10 years. So
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
That's an important thing. It's what President Trump wants as a priority.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
And it's what I think people really need and deserve, because if you're a small business owner, for example, it's very helpful to have certainty to know that you have going forward into the future certainty about what your federal tax rate is going to be, you know, that it wouldn't fluctuate in between elections and all of that. So but now here's the caveat.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
We wanna make sure that we're finding actual cuts. We have to turn this aircraft carrier around. We have too much federal spending. The government's too large. It has too many things, does almost nothing well, right? So that's what the Doge effort is about. That's what the Trump administration is completely dialed in on. We wanna reduce the size and scope of the federal government.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
And to do that, you gotta find real savings. So we wanna encourage all the Republicans. We're the only ones that cut spending, not the Democrats, as is on display. We're gonna encourage everybody to go and find real savings.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2158 - Democrats CAVE, Trump Chalks Up Another Win!
preserve the safety net programs, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, don't believe the hype, don't believe what the Democrats are saying, but find efficiencies, root out the fraud, waste, and abuse, all these things that we think can find maybe a trillion dollars in savings for the taxpayer. That's going to be a great thing, and it's all going to be wrapped into this big process.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
Well, the first thing, I think President Trump should take credit for the 301 tariff investigation he launched in his first term. And if you read the documents justifying the 301 tariffs, it's actually an incredible piece of work. It really lays out in unprecedented fashion in terms of its scope and scale.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
the economic war that china has been waging against america since they acceded to the wto and so i think the 301 tariffs on china are justified i would go further and say as we endorsed in a bipartisan manner even democrats agreed to this on the committee i think the time has come for us to remove permanent normal trade relations status with china you can argue that the tariffs effectively have done that already
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
But if you remember, when we ratified PNTR, we basically said that China's economy is permanently a market economy. China's economy has never been a market economy at all. And so continuing the 3.1 tariffs, removing PNTR, and cutting off the flow.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
of outbound capital investments from America to China, at least when it comes to military items, I think is critical, because right now we're subsidizing our own destruction, right? Chinese ships, military equipment, American asset managers are subsidizing that. So I think Trump can go hardcore on that.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
And then at the same time, and this is where the strategy comes in, I do think you need to, I'm less sympathetic to the 232 tariffs.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
I think you have to, in order to mitigate the economic impact of China tariffs, but also just to rally the world against China's predatory practices, you need to find ways to break down economic and technological barriers within the free world and expand the balance of the free world to include countries that don't fall neatly into the ally category. For example, even with our closest allies,
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
the UK and the Aussies. We have the AUKUS arrangement. There are still barriers to collaboration because of outdated ITAR regulations that we could get rid of. And Trump could claim, hey, I'm bringing the free world closer together. We are joining hands to push back against the commies who are trying to destroy us right now.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
That's like the highest level grand strategic move I think he needs to make.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
I agree with that. If you read the final economic report of the Select Committee on China, when we endorsed getting rid of PNTR, we argued for the gradual phasing in of a new tariff regime. There's some things that we care less about. For example, I want Wisconsin farmers to sell soybeans to China.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
And quite honestly, I don't have a problem if Americans want to buy cheap textiles from China as long as those textiles aren't made with slave labor in Xinjiang province. But
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
Continuing our dependency when it comes to advanced pharmaceutical ingredients, rare earth and critical minerals, all things that we know are going to be weaponized by China if we find ourselves in a confrontation over Taiwan, for example, strikes me as a very bad strategic missteps. So to me, it's easy to start to revive a bilateral trade agenda.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
I don't think anyone's arguing for a big multilateral trade agreement, perhaps a digital regional trade agreement in the Indo-Pacific. But you could see a post-Brexit gold standard trade agreement with the UK with a docking provision. I've argued for a free trade agreement with Taiwan, provided the standards are high. You could start to build that.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
The hardest thing with all of this, I think, is how do you actually effectuate the onshoring, right? Because I think the CHIPS Act provides a good example of how not to do this, right? We're not going to fork over $50 billion for every industry we decide is important from a national security perspective.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
And we certainly aren't going to have a good effect from that if we also saddle those grants with absurd conditions, right? Like in order to get a CHIPS Act grant, you need to build like a woke daycare next to your facility. So the
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
There, I think the best mechanism for onshoring is a combination of bilateral trade agreements, technology agreements, and radical deregulation of the domestic economy and leveraging our asymmetric advantage, which is not throwing a ton of humans and money at the problem. It's innovation. It's leveraging software to reimagine, manufacturing, things like that.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
Above everything you said, though, Ben, I want to hammer home this.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
the most important variable the variable that matters more than anything else is the balance of conventional military power right our economic moves are important they're non-trivial but if we don't fix the balance of conventional military power which is sliding in the wrong direction the odds of a the war with china that will not end well for us go up and up and up
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
Well, maybe I'll attempt to connect sort of the economic dynamics you started with to the invasion of Taiwan, because traditionally, particularly when people on Wall Street analyze this problem, they say, well, China would never invade Taiwan, right? It would be an economic catastrophe. I think that is a dangerous form of mirror imaging. And I think it actually gets the causality backwards, right?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
Because they'll say, well, China's economy sucks. Therefore, Xi Jinping wouldn't be foolish enough to invade Taiwan. Well, part of the reason China's economy sucks is because Xi Jinping is actually preparing his country for a war with America and the West over Taiwan, right? He's encouraging his citizens to eat bitterness, to use a phrase he's used to young Chinese citizens, right?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
He's trying to sanction proof his economy. And I think the more we engaged in that dangerous form of mirror imaging, the less prepared We are. So how do you deal with it? Right. Just to reinforce the fact you need to develop the ability, not just the threat, but the ability to put the entire PLA Navy on the bottom of the Taiwan Strait if they do something as foolish as trying to take Taiwan.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
That's point one. Point two, you know, figuring out the onshoring and critical industries. I mentioned APIs earlier. If you remember in the early stages of the pandemic, Chinese officials threatened to cut off the export of pharmaceutical ingredients and plastic. plunge us into a sea of coronavirus.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
And in the war gaming we did on the select committee, we started off in the conventional military domain, but we increasingly realized a lot of this would play out in the economic space. It would become supply chain warfare. And then third, I would say we have to, as of like yesterday, develop the capability to deal with the cyber weapons that China has pre-positioned in our critical areas.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
infrastructure, right? Imagine someone went around the country, like strapping sticks of dynamite to every water utility or grid system around the country. Well, effectively, that's what's happened with the revelations surrounding both typhoon and salt typhoon. That's a huge vulnerability.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
And one thing that's also apparent, if you do any war gaming around Taiwan, the United States homeland is a target for attack, especially in the cyber domain. In a meaningful sense, you can say the invasion of Taiwan has already begun in the cyber domain.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
And therefore, in order to have an effective deterrent in cyber, we also need to develop the offensive capability to tear down the Great Firewall in China. I've argued that that should take on a position of importance in our grand strategy, similar to the way tearing down the Berlin Wall was a centerpiece of late-stage old Cold War strategy.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
Well, I do think the Trump administration has an opportunity to go around the world now and cut various deals with countries that they've threatened to tariff. I think that would be good for Americans. I mean, a lot of the devil will be in the details.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
The area that my crystal ball or my palantir seeing stone is most murky is when it comes to the future of our economic relationship with China, right? Because President Trump has signaled time and again that he wants to cut a deal with Xi Jinping, right? In the first term, they had a phase one trade agreement with Xi Jinping.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
And there were a lot of other priorities that got held up in pursuit of that deal, right? I had an amendment to the defense bill that would have imposed the death penalty on Huawei and ZTE, big Chinese telecommunications companies that got delayed for a while as they pursued this trade deal. China, of course, like every other agreement they've made internationally since the founding of the party,
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
didn't fulfill the terms of that agreement. They never kept their promises. And so I think it would be unwise to pursue a phase two trade deal, at least until they come into compliance with phase one.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
And then the catastrophe scenario would be if some trade agreement with China or concession is bound up in a broader geopolitical agreement where we basically surrender a certain amount of our position in the Indo-Pacific. Now, I don't think that's what's going to happen, right? Because I know Mike Waltz. I know John Ratcliffe. I know Pete Hegseth. These are hawkish folks when it comes to China.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
I think they see the threat of the CCP clearly. And to sort of end where I began, Trump does deserve credit for the biggest shift in US foreign policy since the end of the Cold War. The entire now bipartisan realignment in a hawkish direction on China was started in 2017 with the first Trump term. Now, the administration was divided on key issues.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
The division, however, was resolved at the end by what we saw with China's behavior in the pandemic and covering up the origin of the pandemic. If we had any lingering doubts, about the genocidal Marxist-Leninists we were dealing with in Beijing, the pandemic sort of removed all of those doubts.
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2178 - SHOWDOWN: Trump Stares Down China
So similarly, now is the time to see our enemies clearly, work with our allies and partners to push back on that threat. It's not going to be easy. I think it's more complex than the old Cold War because we were never economically entangled with the Soviet Union. But it is well within our power to not only prevent a hot war, but to win a Cold War against the CCP.