The Charlie Kirk Show - No Kings and No One Under 50 + The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

The "No Kings" protesters assembled again over the weekend, and it was a giant confab of Vietnam protest leftovers. The TPUSA Frontlines team talks about the mixture of violent Antifa and aging liberals that went out to protest the children, funded by Chinese money. Michael Knowles talks about a big religious controversy in Jerusalem over holding services at Christ's tomb. Ridvan Aydemir the Apostate Prophet a potential Iran revolt, and Blake and Andrew discuss the ultraviral explosion of pro-America content from Japan on X. Watch every episode ad-free on members.charliekirk.com Get new merch at charliekirkstore.comSupport the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of the Charlie Kirk Show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of, precious metals. Learn how you could protect your wealth with noble gold investments at noble gold investments.com. That is noble gold investments.com. All right, welcome to the Charlie Kirk show. It's Monday, March 30th, 2026. Welcome, Blake. Howdy. Howdy. We've got a jam-pack show for you, lots of news over the weekend to get to, and a Japanese timeline purge on X. Not a purge, a surge. Well, it's like a cleanse. That's what it's. is the japanese are amazing we love them and it's been amazing watching them takeover x it's been

much needed and we're going to get to that too in the second segment here we've also got michael knolls from the daily wire we're going to talk about cardinal pizza balla which is by far the coolest name in all of catholicism it has to be he's the uh what is he the latin uh patriarch of jerusalem and so we're going to talk about some of that controversy as well then in hour two we've got the we're going to be keeping our eyes out for a press conference about iran apparently there's going to be some updates there and then we've also got our t p osa front lines team that was scattered out across the country this weekend covering the no king's protest so we've got three of those front line journalists joining us and then we've got the apostate prophet ridvon who was formerly

a muslim now he's a christian and he's going to be talking about the state of the ground at what the what the grassroots feels like in iran are they ready to to rise up, are they not? And he's been doing research all weekend, getting ready for this segment, so I can't wait to hear what he has to say. We've got to start, though, with updates on Iran. The biggest controversy over the weekend that I could see was whether or not we're going to be sending ground troops or not. And it still remains up in the air. It remains up in the air. Let's go ahead and play SOT 6. Reports indicate the United States is preparing for a possible weeks-long ground operation in Iran that would include thousands of U.S. service members. Over the weekend, the

USS Tripoli manned with 3,500 troops, including 2,500 Marines, arrived in the CENTCOM area of operation. This comes as the United States and Israel launched a series of strikes against Iranian military infrastructure over the weekend, including hitting Iran's nuclear development facilities. So we're obviously getting a lot of folks ready over there. Thousands of U.S. troops are getting stationed and ready to go. And I just want to be very clear where I stand, where I believe Blake stands, where I think turning point stands, frankly, is we give President Trump a lot of trust, a lot of patience when it comes to this. He's proven that he doesn't do quagmires. He doesn't do forever wars. And we've been willing to sort of, you know, be a part of this, watch, wait,

understand that waiting is part of this game and to see how this plays out. And we hope for the best. We pray for our troops. But really, boots on the ground is a line we don't want to cross. We are not supportive of boots on the ground, full stop. And as we've warned, whatever you make of the merits of the conflict itself, it is likely to be politically disastrous if it continues long term. Yes. And we want to make that clear, especially because I think there's a lot of people who will just be determined to sell anything the president does and say, oh, it's really popular. Everyone loves it. And that's not a responsible position to take.

If you look at the numbers, this is probably the most skeptical the public has been about any conflict of the United States has ever entered. And we've been honest. We've not been frothing at the mouth. Some of you got mad at us in the emails that we haven't been more, I guess, you know, enthusiastic in our support. What we're saying is we don't like war. We hate it, actually. It doesn't mean that this wasn't the best national security decision that the president could have made. I'm not in the room. I don't know the intel. But we do not want boots on the ground. We do not want a quagmire. We do not want this thing to get out of control. And it does seem like President Trump is signaling that things are getting better. He put out a truth this morning.

I don't know if this was to encourage the markets. You know, a lot of people are skeptical sometimes about these truths. But he says the United States of America is in a serious discussion with a new and more reasonable regime to end our military operations in Iran. There was another quote where he basically said regime change is already done essentially. To end our military operations in Iran, great progress has been made, but if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be. And if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately open for business, we will conclude our lovely staying around by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells, and Karg Island, and possibly all desalination plants, which we have purposely not yet touched. This will be in retribution for our many soldiers and others that Iran. has butchered and killed over the old regime's 47-year reign of terror.

Thank you for your attention to this manner. President Donald J. Tr. And part of what's complicated here is we want this to end quickly. We want this to end without escalation. And we are aware that the president's negotiating style does include lots of very aggressive threats and saber rattling in order to then back off. And so everything we say has to be couched in those terms. Like, if the president playing super hardball does help him get out faster, we have to support that because we want us to get out faster.

Yes, exactly. And we'll just play. Last week, we covered the 15 point plan. He was asked about this 15 point peace plan by a reporter. Here's his answer, Sot 9. You had it off from the 15 point plan to the lines. Did they ever come back? Yeah, they came back on the 15 point plan.

They gave us most of the box. Why wouldn't they? You make it sound like they've made some concessions. Can you identify those? Well, they're agreeing with us on the plan. I mean, we ask for 15 things, and for the most part, we're going to be asking for a couple of other things. And just to prove that they're serious, they gave us all these boats.

When I talked about four days ago, a present, I said they gave me a present, but I didn't think I was at liberty to say what it was. What it was was was 8 plus 2. It's 10 massive boatloads. massive boatloads of oil. And today they gave us another president. They gave us 20 boatloads of oil. That starts being shipped tomorrow. We're having very good meetings, both directly and indirectly. And I think we're getting a lot of very important points. So I'm, I'm very pro signaling that this thing can get done, that there can be a route forward that we can have peace quicker,

sooner, without boots on the ground. Now, if President Trump is moving those assets into the region in order, to Blake's point, to saber-addle, to strengthen his negotiations, that's okay. I understand. He's got to do what he's got to do. But we do not want boots on the ground. We do not want this thing becoming a quagmire because in war, this tends to happen. When you get into a situation, you escalate a little bit, well, then something else goes wrong. Then you escalate a little bit more. And then you think, well, we're pot committed. We better take Carg Island. We better take this field. We better blow this up. And we better hold it for the protection of the law. local citizenry. Whatever the rationale will be, there will be endless rationales, and that's the point.

There would always be a reason to go farther and deeper and get more committed. This is how you end up in Afghanistan for 20 years. So hopefully, prayerfully, this will not be the decision that is made. Prayerfully, we will get out. Prayerfully, there will be moderate actors on the other side of this negotiation. Prayerfully, there will be an opportunity for us to declare victory and exit stage left. That's what we want to do. And hopefully and prayerfully, the Strait of Hormuz will be opened. And that really, I think, is the crux of the matter. Can we get that thing open?

Scott Besson is basically saying it will happen. Marco Rubio is saying it will happen. Hopefully we get that done. Prayerfully, we get that done. Because boots on the ground is a line. I certainly do not want to cross. I do not think the American people want to cross. And to Blake's point, it's politically, extraordinarily fraught.

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Visit charlieforhillsdale.com to enroll today. that's Charlie for Hillsdale.com. Learn deeply. Lead boldly. Carry it forward. If you are not on X, consider yourself lucky, actually, most of the time. But if you are not on X this weekend, you have missed out in one of the great cultural exchanges I have ever seen, actually. And what's amazing about it is that, you know, so there's a guy on Twitter that I think he's kind of like the guy who, X. He announces all the big changes, right? And he said that the number one country on X, actually,

per capita is Japan. The saturation of Japanese users on the platform. It's Nikita Beer. He is let's see what his title is. He's head of product at X. And he says they have more daily active users and more overall time

spent on X than any other country in the world. The U.S. has more users overall, but they're not on it as much. Whereas over two thirds of Japan uses X on a least monthly basis. And they used to be very much in their own world. They speak a difficult language that no one can understand. But especially with modern AI tools, it's really easy to translate everything and have it be

pretty accurate. And so what X has started to do, and it really ramped up in the last few weeks, is they started to share a lot more cross-language content. It's got they have an auto-translator. Yeah, because they have an auto-translator. And so you'll, you can scroll through and you'll see a post, and it'll just be, automatically translated from Japanese or from French. And they're

wonderful. And they're wonderful. And people have discovered this, especially over the past week. There was a giant explosion of Japanese stuff showing up on Americans X. And it's amazing. It turns out the Japanese are awesome and everyone loves the Japanese.

Well, I heard it put this way that there's like four really cool foreign countries in the world and the rest of them are awful, but Japan is definitely one of the really cool ones. Do we have 24 ready? Yeah, here, this is a good explainer video on how this happened, 24. If you're not on X, formerly known as Twitter, you're probably missing. There's a massive love affair going on between Americans and Japanese people.

So basically the product manager at X decided to reveal the information that the largest country participating on X is actually Japan. It's not America. America's number two. And so they decided to flip on the auto-translate feature. And then from that point on, Americans and Japanese people started interacting. and turns out we love each other and that's honestly really nice to see like the timeline is just filled with japanese people talking about american culture predominantly like red america culture we're talking like monster trucks barbecues pickup trucks Texas in general and obviously japan you know americans have always had a thing for japan so that's you know the we've things always been there but the tweets are so i have to say it's so nice to see an ally actually like us because we get so much smugness from europeans these days that it's really nice to see something.

Yeah, so there was one. They actually showed the photo there. Throw up this tweet. It's the one with all the guys around the barbecue. This Japanese guy just posts a photo and it's a bunch of white dudes probably in the south somewhere with just a gigantic pile of steaks over a giant grill

and he says, I'd love to see this photo. I want to participate in this event in person someday. And I think it got 20 million likes. These guys are like, I've been told that if I just post a picture of nice looking meat. I'll get a lot of comments and then like, you know, millions of engagements later. And the other thing that's been really interesting about this is that there, I feel like it's

transforming people's brains in real time right now about something called cultural appropriation, right? We have been told in this country that cultural appropriation is so terrible and it's bad. Well, guess what? You can play the B-roll of these Japanese people dancing to American music if you want. They are all about appropriating American culture. And they're showing like I think they're doing the twist, right? Yeah, this is a thing that has been the case in Japan for a while and people are more aware of it. That Japan actually has a lot of nostalgia is not the right word, but a lot of enthusiasm for like what you'd consider really iconically American parts and especially classic America. So they like cowboys.

They like jazz music. They like classic Hollywood stuff. They like bluegrass. Yeah, so they like bluegrass. They like gangster movies. Yeah. You know, like kind of classic, you know, roaring 20s type stuff. And they like barbecue.

Yeah, they love baseball. They love, yeah, monster trucks, pro wrestling. Hulk Hogan was big in Japan. Yeah. And it's just so sweet because these people, here's what you realize. And this is what I was thinking about this morning, is that Japan is a pretty closed culture, meaning they don't have a ton of immigrants. The reason you have the current prime minister of Japan, who's a big Trump fan,

is because they got flooded with a bunch of Muslims, and they started seeing mosques. pop up and they closed it down instantly. Now, I'm not saying the problem's completely fixed, but that is a new wave in Japan that they haven't had to deal with as far as foreign cultures coming into their own. So it's a pretty homogenous culture. I don't have to, and these videos of them not having to lock up at the Apple store,

their Apple phones and their Apple devices because nobody's going to steal anything. There was one tweet where I saw this American guy, had it their baby. And they had a stroller, the baby in a stroller and they were going to cross jaywalk a street and this old Japanese man stops them and says the downfall of civilization starts with a single individual single individual which is an amazing lesson to learn but here's the thought society has been constructed

civilization has been constructed for millennia blake you know you and i geek out on like british history for example they get invaded by the vikings and so for hundreds of years they're just fighting off the invaders. And you think about this, we build cities with walls in the old days. It was, every city had to be protected. Our whole civilizations were built around protecting against the invading hordes. Look at Roman history. And yet something happened. The borders get really well constructed, really firm. And we fight wars and they're huge wars, but it's all with the assumption that these borders are sacred, that they mean something. And then you enter into modern culture and the modern world.

And you got air travel and all this stuff. And it's like we forgot that our cultures meant something, that they were worth protecting. And then you get this one outpost, Japan, that still believes that its culture is worth protecting. And it's marvelous. It's wonderful. And it just, I happen to believe that what you're seeing

is going to be this re-energizing behind the nation state and about the purity of a culture and the beauty of a culture, this mass migration, this invasion-level migration that we've suffered under, doesn't need to be the case across the world. We can build antibodies to it and relearn these old lessons against stopping the invading horde. Yeah, this is the other great thing. I think the other reason this is really blown up on the right is a lot of the stuff that's

gone by the world from Japan is Japanese people just saying really right-wing stuff. Yeah. I'm really tired of all of these immigrants. And then there was one like some, I guess some Muslim migrant to Japan was complaining because in Japan the tradition is to cremate bodies instead of burying them. And he wanted them to change it. And the person, they just say the stuff that you practically get in trouble for staying in America. Okay, go to some other country that, you know, Barry's bodies.

Japan does cremation. Yeah. And they say that all the time. And there's a bunch of that. And I think one of the best summaries I saw, this was by an American, but it really gets at the heart of it where he says, the new auto-translate feature is great. Right-wing Americans get to read and retweet their cultural allies, high conscientious Japanese who cook delicious food and respect craftmanship. And left-wing Americans get to retweet their cultural allies. bio-Leninist communists and third world rapists.

I like this one. This is actually a Korean guy observing this culture exchange happening. And he goes, Western right wingers deep admiration for Japanese for the Japanese proves they're not irrationally xenophobic. They simply dislike dysfunctional people from dysfunctional cultures. Exactly. And to that I say, amen. It's really that simple. But there's really not that many good cultures out there.

So the list is short. But we like those guys. Hi folks, Andrew Colvitt here. I'd like to tell you about my friends over at Y Reefi. You've probably been hearing me talk about Y Refi for some time now. We are all in with these guys. If you or someone you know is struggling with private student loan debt, take my advice and give them a call. Maybe you're behind on your payments. Maybe you're even in default. You don't have to live in this nightmare anymore. Why Refi will provide you a custom payment based on your ability to pay. They tailor each loan individually, they can save you thousands of dollars and you can get your life back.

We go to campuses all over America and we see student after student who's drowning in private student loan debt. Many of them don't even know how much they owe. Why Refi can help. Just go to whyrefi.com. That's the letter why then refi.com and remember why refi doesn't care what your credit score is. Just go to why refi.com and tell them your friend Andrews sent you. welcoming now to the show michael knolls good to see you michael how you been good to see you gentlemen i'm i'm better now that i'm hanging out with you guys well exactly and that japan has taken over our ex feeds i think we all are feeling a lift from this it's great much appreciated i know seriously we needed it bad we needed it real bad so you know we have a very ecumenical spirit on this

show uh we are by nature he's catholic i'm uh protestant although i was born catholic i'm a but, you know, it's a long story. We're working on you. We'll get you inside a day. Not today. He left the true faith for, you know. Then I got saved in college, the old fact. I actually got saved reading a C.S. Lewis book, so, you know, Anglican guy.

So anyway, so here we are. You know, by the way, not to derail us, but actually in college, why I was like falling away and everything. And it was an evangelical Protestant guy who had a table set up on the commons. And I was somewhat interested in religion, but I was very interested in free stuff. And he was given out books. And one of the first things that brought me back to the faith was an evangelical guy passing me a C.S. Lewis book at a college table. You know, C.S. Lewis, if you haven't read him, read Mir Christian. It's a great place to start. But I'm actually going through the great divorce right now and a grief observed as well. So he's amazing. He strengthens my faith every time I read his stuff. Anyways. But there was a big kerfuffle. All right. And I want to get the prots and the Catholics, you know, back on the same page.

We've got to get the vibes right here, Michael. That's why, I mean, Charlie's going to be rough getting the Protestants on the same page of this. But we should set this up for people. Yeah, set it up. Yeah, aren't aware of this. So there's a major church in the heart of Jerusalem in the old city, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It's built over the site which Catholics, Orthodox, a lot of other Christian groups believe, is Jesus's tomb. I say that because I know when Charlie went to the Holy Land, there is another tomb that a lot of Protestants like.

But this is the one, this is the traditional one that's been the case for a very long. time. And it's in the heart of the old city. And since the beginning of the war with Iran, they have closed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for religious services. Now, what's not brought up by a lot of people, they have also closed Alaksa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock. And they have closed the Western Wall for like a large number of pilgrims. But this is Palm Sunday. But this was Palm Sunday. And the dispute specifically was that the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierre Batista Pizabala, say that 10 times fast. super. By far the coolest name in Christendom.

He complained because he was not allowed even to basically privately, him and a couple others, offer a mass for Palm Sunday. And he was very concerned about that. And it caused a lot of backlash. A PR nightmare for the Israeli government, which eventually quickly, Benjamin Netanyahu did step in and say, I am going to take steps to make sure religious services can be held during Holy Week. But Michael, you were commenting on this a lot online as well. Yeah, Michael, what was your take? So this was an egregious mistake by the Israeli government. In the thing itself, because the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem should not, under any circumstances,

whatsoever be prevented from going to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, much less on Palm Sunday, during which time we commemorate Christ's entry into Jerusalem as a king, you know, fedded with palms. And it starts off Holy Week. So in the thing itself, it was wrong. Israel had no right to do it. But just from a PR perspective, it was a huge mistake. And there is a silver lining here. I've been telling people for weeks now, things get a little wacky during Lent.

This is just my experience. I think if you have eyes of faith, you might have seen it yourself. People who are atheists are going to look at us like we're crazy for saying that. But something about Lent, especially something about Holy Week, things get a little tough. It's like the devil goes into over. It's like the Christian full moon or something. Yeah, exactly. Yes.

Yes, it is. It is. And so there's a silver lining, though, to this really unfortunate incident yesterday, which is there was a global outcry, and everybody seemed to agree. Protestants, Catholics, eventually the Israeli government. You had Mike Huckabee come out, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, who is as pro-Israel as any person ever has been since Theodore Herzl. And he came out and he said, hey, this was a mistake, guys. They really shouldn't have done this. Senator Cruz, a good friend of mine. very, very Southern Baptist, very, very pro-Israel. He says he's the most pro-Israeli U.S. Senator. He came out and he said, Huckabee's totally right. Israel really bungled this one. Can't do it. So you got the Catholic Church, the Southern Baptists, the evangelicals. You've got then Isaac Herzog and Benjamin Netanyahu came out and said,

hey, this was a huge mistake. This is on us. We're not going to do it. We talked to Petezabala. He's going to be allowed to say these private prayers and, you know, smaller events, celebrations. not 200 people masses, but we want to make sure that there's a presence of the Holy Sepulchre during Holy Week. So it all worked out. And the thing that I noticed on top of all of it is this really showed you the bot accounts on social media, some of the operative accounts.

I mean, people were making all sorts of disgusting claims about Cardinal Pizza Bala. This is a great man. This is a man who, during the Gaza War, he offered himself to Hamas in exchange for the Israeli hostages. he's just a wonderful man of the church. And so the people who were going after him still and defending, keeping him out of the Holy Sepulcher, I said, hold on, when you have Netanyahu, the Catholic Church and the Protestants, all on the same team, and you're on the other team, I think you're the problem.

Okay, I think we know which side to be on it. It was like cats and dogs living together. There was this amazing breakthrough on social media over the weekend. It was like a ray of light came down. And we got on the same page on Palm Sunday, which is ironic. I actually didn't make this connection. I'm sure everybody on X already did, you know, days ago. But this whole like no kings rally.

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Palm Sunday, celebrating literally the arrival, the triumphant arrival of Christ, our king, to the city of Jerusalem. It is ironic. Do you know, I'm going to confess my ignorance or my lack of thought on this? That's the first time that occurred to me. I'm hearing it for the first time. That's an amazing connection. Because the thing is, if you're a person of faith,

especially if you're Christian, Christianity has a very, very symbolic view of the world. Like, everything makes sense. There are no mere coincidences. And if you think that God is real, then stuff is playing out in history beyond our own actions and our own imaginations. And so the Libs who did their stupid no-kings protests this weekend

with Maisie Hirono accidentally admitted. that Trump is not a king and never will be. Anyway, that's a point for another time. When they were doing that, I'm sure they didn't realize the symbolism of it all, but the symbolism is there nonetheless. I mean, frankly, there is even symbolism to the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem being denied entry into the Holy Sepulchre. Whether people intended it or not, really probably they did not.

There is a real symbol here. And for the libs to just say, yeah, no kings, no kings. He is not the king of the Jews. On Palm Sunday weekend, where we are literally, they're holding their protests and 2,000 years ago there was a whole other gathering where they were declaring we do have a king.

It really is a dramatic juxtaposition and I mean that's what happens when you purge God from your political ideology you don't catch the obvious but apparently you didn't either Michael so we can talk about that. I miss the obvious I needed you to tell you. That's an amazing

observation. Yeah it's I just realize that we do have a king. His name is Jesus and he's still alive and reigning over us today. And that's a beautiful thing. And I, and I do agree with you, though, that when you see, and I really, that was the spirit, actually, of inviting you on the show, was this ecumenical, like, I just felt, I just been feeling in the ether, Michael, like, a little bit of, like, tension between the Prots and the Catholics. And it's like, Oh, yeah. Going back about 500 years. Well, yeah. But we, it felt like, you know, in recent years,

we kind of put most of that stuff behind. I mean, I, as a cradle Catholic, I mean, Blake disagrees. I just think in general we tend to see each other very, very much as allies, same team. Yeah, we disagree around the edges or we disagree about that. But I want that to be the case, especially somebody who grew up as a cradle Catholic, like I said, went to Catholic high school and things. I'm the kind of guy who gets annoyed. I got to know. I get annoyed when these Protestant churches go squish and they like delete the stuff from their statements of faith that the Pope is the Antichrist or whatever.

Like, come on. You know, I was just talking. all posts. Right before this interview, I was talking to Doug Wilson, who I adore, because he is like the most hardcore Protestant I've ever met in my life. And I have a lot of them in my life. But I do agree with you on this point, especially, look, it comes full circle with the devil goes into overtime during Lent and Holy Week. The devil really loves to stoke division. And you've, you've seen this, you've seen this politically within the administration trying to stoke division in this really unified admin. And then you certainly see it among Americans of other types, especially people of faith, is you think,

hey, guys, the left wants to harm us. The left wants to slaughter babies and redefine marriage and extirpate Christianity from public life. And while I would love to get into the 30 years war, well, I would love to discuss all of the nuances of Luther versus Zwingli versus Calvin, versus the one holy Catholic and apostolic faith. Like that's cool, guys. We'll do that. But to suggest that we should be spending all of our times relitigating like 15, 17, when there is an actual imminent political problem that is threatening all Christians is, to me, a little, I don't know, a little misguided. I don't think of politics as debate club. I think of it as real political communities where people have to live together

and hopefully flourish. And I think we've got to get real sometimes. So I totally agree. Well, if we can't build a coalition between Protestants and Catholics in America, then we have. And listen, there's going to be disagreements. There's going to be disagreements on theological stuff. That's fine. But you are definitely an ally. And I want to just keep encouraging that. So, Michael, we've been having a really wonderful conversation and Blake wants to completely throw a wrench in it.

Perfect. I was waiting. Well, so I think, you know, we obviously touched upon the drama around the. Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but I think all of us understand this is part of a bigger debate about Israel, America's relationship towards it, and we see a lot of surging skepticism, or outright hostility, anti-semitism. More than skepticism in some quarters. So I was wondering, do you have any thought, if you've been following this, in addition

to the scuffle over the Holy Sepulchre, there's also been claims about the last Christian settlement in the all-Christian settlement in the, all-Christian settlement in the West Bank has claimed it's getting attacked a lot by Israeli settlers. There's a lot of constant violence there. There's also reports of kind of the last Christians in Syria getting wiped out as a result of the government there. And I guess if you've been following either of those things, if you have thoughts on them and how they relate to America's alliances and relationships in the Holy Land. Yeah, certainly. You know, I do care particularly about persecuted Christians in the Middle East. My friend Father Benedict Keeley has a group called Nazarean.org, which I strongly

recommend people support. It helps persecuted Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere. But there are very few. These are the oldest Christian communities in the world. And it's kind of funny when missionaries from America or Europe say, we're going to go and evangelize in the Middle East. You know, they were the first ones. They evangelized you, believe it or not. And so they've been decimated over the last 25 years. You see this even outside of the Middle East with a Armenia, you know, Azerbaijan was unfortunately kind of won

the war with Armenia, destroyed. Armenia is the oldest Christian nation in the world. It became Christian before even the Edict of Milan, before Emperor Constantine. And they've been really put on the back foot as well. And it's ironic there because in the case of Azerbaijan and Armenia,

and this kind of brings it back to the Israel issue, Israel was backing Azerbaijan, which is a Muslim country, against Armenia, which is a Christian country, but it's because Armenia had better relations with Iran, which is a Muslim country, and Iran is the existential threat to Israel.

So, bizarrely, the United States, which has a good relationship with Armenia, was funding the weapons that were going to Azerbaijan, and it becomes a real mess. So how do we make sense of these things? Well, right off the bat, I would say, obviously, one can criticize the Israeli government

and should in some cases. One should be skeptical of entangling alliances, this broadly. But I would just caution people. I would not allow your skepticism of or even antipathy for Israel to push you into the position of being pro-Islam. The Christians in the Middle East and elsewhere who are persecuted are persecuted by Muslims. We saw on Palm Sunday in Nigeria at least 10 Christians were massacred by Muslims in Nigeria in the Plateau region. Just adds to the number, you know, which has grown immensely in recent years. So it's a major problem. And I think that sort of ideological or shallow responses to these issues in the Middle East really miss the point.

You know, this is a longstanding problem. Islam has been a longstanding problem for 1,400 years. The question of sovereignty in the Holy Land has been disputed for roughly 2,000 years right now. And so a little skepticism, I think, is merited. It's just it has to be done with some balance and with some prudence and with some charity. To look at Twitter, to look at some podcasts, you would think that we've just, we've been in a quagmire in the Middle East for 2,000 years because someone didn't read, you know, the pseudonymous Twitter accounts post. If only we had the tweeter, we could have solved it all. No, these are immensely complex problems that are not only religious, but also political. I think it's well said. I want to, I want to give Noel some credit that we did not prep him for that question. We did not. We just threw him to the wolves on that one. And you navigated it deftly.

I think that, you know, you deserve some credit for that. I was like, here we go. Here we go. The problem, though, is because I didn't just, like, throw a grenade at, you know, this country or that country or whatever, I'm not going to get as many clicks. My answer, it was too. It was too wordy. Which country? Name names.

Yeah. Do you tell me the country? Which one is it? Listen, I think that's great. All right. So we started the show. off and we'll give you one last hard one here. So it does appear that President Trump, the Trump administration are positioning assets in the Middle East for a potential boots on the ground situation.

We don't know yet if this is saber rattling. We don't know if this is to strengthen a negotiating hand to, you know, listen, if you doubt President Trump's will to do military strikes of any nature, you shouldn't. And I think he understands that he has that card to play. So he's moving the assets and what do you expect to transpire in the next coming weeks? And if he does use boots on the ground, what do you think the political ramifications would be? The political ramifications will be very, very tough. And the reason that I think some people don't understand that is because the war itself or the strikes themselves, whether you want to admit it's a war or just call them isolated strikes, regardless, it has a lot of support among conservative Republicans, 90 percent.

support about. But I think that support is soft. I think people recognize Iran has been a threat for a long time. There is a grand strategic interest in getting rid of the Iranian regime. Trump has been talking about this for 40 years. So yeah, they've been a thorn on our side for 50 years. That's all true. But I think that 90% support is soft. I think people have trauma from the political experience of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. I think it could collapse very quickly. However, and this was one of the arguments for more restraint in Iran is that the die is cast. We are where we are. We cannot let the Iranians get away with closing the Strait of Hormuz. If we let them get away with that now, we will have only strengthened the Iranian regime. I don't care how many missiles we took out. I don't care how

many Ayatollahs we killed. That will have strengthened them tremendously. The next time we have any disagreement with them, they're going to close that straight, and they're going to feel confident that we're not really going to do anything about it. So I am a Trump truster. He's got a better record on foreign policy than any president in my lifetime. And what I've said since the beginning of this war is I would have argued against it, and I did argue against it. But Trump says five weeks, I'll start worrying on week six. The issue right now, I think for the polling and for the administration is, okay, we're at the start of week five. That means we're entering into week six. Trump says we're close to a deal in the coming weeks. But I think you could see that 90% support start to crater pretty quickly. Am I, am I a panicking? Am I being a panicking?

No, no, that's about where we started the show today. I mean, listen, my position is, I don't want boots on the ground. But I'm with you. What you said, the dais cast, like this operation is underway. You cannot let that straight of Hormuz get closed. And this is why we were reticent in the first place, because war has a tendency of getting out of control. Wars are unpredictable.

They're easier to start than to end. They are, they're expensive. They're rarely, they're expensive. And they're just, they rarely give you the outcome that you're promised is the most likely one when you start. Well, and listen, when you look at some of this stuff, you know, there's that video going viral online of the No Kings in L.A. And they're saying, you know, shoot ICE agents. It's like, well, there's a lot of enemy combatants here that I wish we would have spent $200 billion addressing. So, yeah, anyways.

And focusing, even just the focus of it. I agree. Exactly. And so there's a lot of reason to feel that kind of not in your stomach. We're praying for our troops. We're praying for success. And we're praying for you, Michael. God bless you.

Thank you. you gentlemen good to see you if you're a parent you don't need to be told that online safety is important that's why ticot has over 50 preset safety and privacy settings and beyond that parents can set up family pairing to help shape their teens experience on the app with family pairing parents can get visibility into their teens followers and who they follow help restrict content that's not right for them and set screen time limits parents can also set restricted times so they're not on ticot when they shouldn't be because feeling good about the time your teen spends online shouldn't come with guesswork in addition to the already built in safety and privacy protections family pairing gives

parents more tools to shape their teen's online experience based on what's right for their family remember when safety comes first discovery and creativity can follow learn more by going to ticot.com slash guardians guide welcoming now to the show our three tpUSA frontlines journalist. We've got Bo Alford, Frontline's TPSA reporter. We've got Gabe Victor Victal, Frontline's photojournalist. And then we have Ro Ortiz, a new edition, Frontline TPSA photojournalist. I believe she's in D.C. Hello, everybody. Hi. Good to see you. So you guys were all active covering the geriatrics against kingship event, holding signs by a billionaire that lives in Shanghai. Tell us about what you saw. Why don't we just start with you, Bo? Where were you

stationed? What did you see? What was the vibes? Yes, sir. We were in New York City. I'd like to start by saying it, it feels great knowing that we did our due diligence and making sure there are no kings in America. No, we were in New York. There was a pretty good-sized turnout, but the people there couldn't answer some of the more basic questions I had to ask them, which we can get that, get to that in a little bit. But yeah, I was in New York City. And Gabe, you were also in New York, is that right? Yeah, I was in New York along with Beau. And, you know, to mention the amount of people, there was a lot. I mean, there was about probably 300,000 people. That's how many people RSVP for it or signed up online. And, you know, I've normally,

gone to these events and they say that there's a lot more coming than there actually is. But for this event, New York, it was a huge turnout. Well, that's interesting to see. I mean, 300,000 for New York, though. I mean, it's like, what? What is the population of New York? About 8 million? I mean, you know, all right, fine. Yeah, there's a lot of New York Patriots. Yeah, exactly. This is true. There was actually a lot of people who did mention that they did come from out of state. Yeah, I bet that's true. Roe, where we were?

you covering and what did you see what were the vibes um i was in washington dc um there were it was a good turnout there were lots of people a couple thousand definitely um it was mostly old white boomers i barely saw people of color um it was pretty tame compared to the protest you saw in la or in portland where there's spray painting kill your local ice agent it was very chill and tame well well that's that's a very interesting observation you just made and it reminded me of a clip we have ready. SOT 23. It seems like there's a lack of diversity here today, that it's mostly people who look like you and I.

This is not. This is not. It is not for black people, for people of color to get out on the street. They're at risk when they do that. If anybody's going to get arrested here, it's going to be a black person. It is not safe for them, and they don't need to participate. We need to walk in their name. So did you guys get the vibe that if a black person,

would have showed up at one of these rallies that they would have got arrested. I'm just curious. Absolutely not. Yeah, no. Not unless they were committing a crime. You know. You got to love that white savior complex. Yeah.

I mean, this is, I mean, it really was, it was Robert De Niro, it was Bruce Springsteen. It was Amy Klobuchar. Tim Walts. I think there was some sort of, there was like a musical rally that, yeah, it was like Bruce Springsteen, Bernie said. It was something where like the youngest person there, Jane Fonda, like the youngest person on the stage was like 78. years old. Another thing I saw,

they mentioned, this actually, the bulwark posted this, they were pointing out, turnout in the villages, you know, a very senior heavy part of Florida. They were saying it was double the turnout of last year and there's video of, you know, them racing by all this turnout. And okay, yeah, I guess turnout is turnout.

But it does strike me that really this sort of mass protest, it's a lot of people who wish they were still protesting the Vietnam War. It's very old, lib boomers basically, which there's a lot of great boomers out there too, but this is a subtype. And maybe New York was different. So Rose saying it was old boomers in D.C. What about in New York?

I mean, New York's a younger city. There's a lot of people, young people that flock to New York to try and start a life and they're excited by the city. And a lot of people from out of town. Did you see a more diverse group there, Bo or Gabe? Not necessarily. I would say it was slightly more diverse, but it is important to, note that I was assaulted twice and both times I was assaulted was by old white men. There were a few people that were diverse, but for the most part, it was old white people that felt like it was their need to speak up for minorities. Yeah, I would say that it was very middle age, like older, millennial, younger Gen X kind of people that were at this protest, for sure. So, which is interesting, You know, it's 75% of liberal students say preventing a speaker from talking is justified.

27% say violence is acceptable to stop your political, I guess, enemies. Obviously, we all live through the assassination of our friend Charlie. And, you know, you see that. Conservatives show up on campuses. They get spat at. They get blocked. They get harassed. You got assaulted, bow.

I didn't know that. That's the first time hearing about this. what like when you're talking to these people on the on the streets like what is the animation what is their motivating factor why are they crossing these lines that have been sacrosanct in american political culture why is this happening right now do you do you get can you get any uh conclusion yeah great question i can tell you especially the first time that i was assaulted which the video's coming out here soon um he didn't know the answer i asked a very basic question and then people started stepping in trying to get the subject changed when he couldn't get that answer.

And one person took it upon himself. He was an older white man walking. When I kept pressing him when he didn't know the answer, another man stepped in and decided to knock the mic out of my hand. And then another person later on in the day proceeded to try and knock my beanie off. Yeah. Gabe, I'm sorry that happened to you, Bo. Gabe, you were. probably right there with him, right? What was your observation? You know, like these, these people, the reason that they get so violent, at least in my opinion, is over and over again, they're told that conservatives or that right-wingeres, that even just journalists in general are Nazis, that they're violent. And, you know, if you were to think that our grandparents or great-grandparents

of many other people, they went out and they fought Nazis on the front lines. So they think that in their mind, it is justified to attack us, to hurt us, because they truly believe deep down that we are all these evil authoritarian Nazi types. Roe, you seem, you know, very sweet, not like Bo or Gabe. Did you get accosted at all at one of these, by any of these protesters? I didn't. I blended in very well, though. But I knew if, I know that if they knew my stance on things, they would not be nice to me at all. And honestly, it's just very unfortunate.

I feel that they have tunnel vision when it comes to these issues, and it's reinforced by the media. I mean, you saw the process. The one I went to in D.C., there was a correspondent from MSNL, and he had an F. Trump shirt on as he's, like, talking on the – A reporter did it? On the news. Yeah, yeah. And so they see that, and it just reinforces this mindset that they have. And it's just very unfortunate that they treat other people with such disrespect.

Yeah. And did you get any insight when you asked them questions of what they were protesting? I mean, obviously Trump is not a king, but they're saying it anyways. Did you get any insight? Yeah. I mean, it was funny. So they were chanting, this is what democracy looks like as they're advocating for the removal of a democratically elected leader. I mean, that is just so ironic. Ro, you were in D.C., you were talking all these geriatric boomers, and they, you, what kind of questions did you ask them? And did you find anything out? Did you learn anything? Well, I wasn't asking them questions. I was just taking videos, but I was paying attention to their signs. And one sign that really stuck out to me was Hitler would be proud of you, Donald Trump. And I think that is just such an insane thing to say.

A lot of them were obviously very unhappy with the foreign Iran. They were calling for the abolishing ice. And most of the signs were really saying they just don't want Trump. They want to remove him. Yeah. Bo, you were asking questions. What questions did you ask and what did you learn, if anything? Learned absolutely nothing.

Questions I asked were very simple. What brought you out here? What is the main reason you are out here? What is the biggest issue that you care about that brings you out here? And then I was also asking about conservatives and trying to see what their thoughts were on conservatives in general. So I was asking, what are your thoughts on conservatives? Is there anything you agree with conservatives on? What is your message to conservatives?

And their answers were always very extreme. A few of them of which were actually wishing death. upon conservatives. Yeah. I'm really interesting, interested in knowing if these people understand the origins or the people that are funding these networks that put on the No Kings rallies. For example, Roy Singham, somebody that we've brought up on this show number of times, he's a billionaire in Shanghai.

He attends CCP workshops. He funnels millions of dollars through shell companies through the United States. And three congressional committees have subpoenaed him as a subject of investigation for being a CCP foreign agent. So this is one of the guys funding this. So again, communist country, probably a CCP foreign agent, funneling millions of dollars for signs for these people to carry around. So groups you've heard of Code Pink, I remember Code Pink all the way back in the Bush years.

And that's a funny thing to bring up, actually. Because if you look at like 1990s Democrat Party, they were anti-illegal immigration. They were pro-parents. They were pro-balance budget. They were pro-borders. They were pro-free speech. They're basically, like, Bill Clinton is essentially, from the 1990s, is not dissimilar to the conservative platform in many ways in 2026. I mean, but they didn't have a problem then.

Did they call Bill Clinton a king? I don't think they did. But I don't know if there's anything else really to surmise other than it is really just an anti-Trump rally that is spread across the country. And I believe they're trying to spark a color revolution. This is why you hear them talk about we just need 3.5% of the population in order to spark a color revolution. That's what they really want. Anyways, I don't think they got anywhere close to that this weekend, but nevertheless, it was pretty hilarious. Gabe and Bo, last time we had you guys on, you were dodging IEDs in New York City from a terrorist.

You were at the Gracie Mansion. I don't know, a terrorist incident. Have you guys had a chance to reflect on what, I mean, you really were close to potentially putting your lives at line. Have you had a chance to reflect on that incident anymore? Have you heard any updates about that? Reflection, 100%. We were praying very hard before going to New York again.

Because, you know, this past weekend, it's definitely something that could have happened, right? these radicals, they typically don't show up to these mass events where there's, you know, over like 100,000 people at it. But 100% they could, especially if they're, you know, expecting any pushback from right-wingers from conservatives. And I 100%, you know, was praying before, praying that, you know, me and Bo would be safe and that also the other front-lines reporters would be safe across the country. I know we had people in L.A. and D.C. But, yeah, I definitely am glad. glad that we got out of it safe, you know, the first time and that this weekend there was no issues.

Yeah. Yeah. Gabe said that well. I was just going to reflect and say basically what he said when I got home, definitely hugged my wife a little bit harder. And then I'm not going to lie. I think that when we were told that we were going back to New York City for No Kings, it definitely was something in the back of my head.

Like, you know, the previous history of New York, of course. and then also who we have elected is mayor in New York. That's definitely something that's always going to be in the back of your mind. So we definitely prayed a little bit harder and we're thanking God when we were safe. Yeah. In that wild, that that's the world we live in now. You know, I just hate it. I hate it for all of you guys.

I hate it for the country. Ro, I'm going to give you the final word here. You are new to the TPSA Frontlines team. What is your beat? What are you going to be covering? and how's it going so far? Oh, it's going great. I'm really enjoying this position.

Being with all this team has been fantastic. I'm going to be working on a lot of mini-docs, exploring different things around America, different issues at the moment, just heavily focusing on this administration and the amazing things are doing. Yeah, because we've got a White House correspondent about to have a baby if I'm not doing.

Yes, yes, I'm covered for her. She is super pregnant. I think she's giving birth this week. It's crazy. Yeah. So Monica is our TPSA Frontlines White House correspondent. She got married not too long ago. Then quickly they're expecting a child and she's about to give birth. So Monica, we are praying for you and we wish you all the best. In the meantime, Rose coming in and she's doing great work already.

Stay safe out there, guys. Thank you for coming on and telling us your experience. And we're glad you're safe. and the geriatric boomers didn't rough you up too bad, Beau. Could have been worse. It could have been worse. Take care. Thank you so much.

Bye. Before he ever stepped behind a microphone, Charlie understood something important. Leadership begins with learning. He didn't chase a diploma or a title. He chased truth. Through Hillsdale College's free online courses, he studied the great works of the classics,

the principles of the American founding, and the life-changing truths of the Bible. Those ideas didn't just inform him. They shaped his character, strengthened his convictions, and prepared him for the challenges ahead. One of the courses he took was the Genesis story, taught by Hillsdale Professor Dr. Justin Jackson.

This free online course explores the relationship between God and man, what happens when that relationship is broken and the path toward reconciliation. It's a real college course, rigorous, thoughtful, and accessible to anyone willing to learn. You can take the very same course, free. Grow stronger in your faith.

Gain clarity about humanity and your place in the world. Prepare yourself for a life with courage and conviction. Visit charlieforhillsdale.com to enroll today. That's Charlie forhillsdale.com. Learn deeply. Lead boldly. Carry it forward. I'm excited about our next guest here. This is Ridvan Idemir. He is

also known as the apostate prophet. You can check him out on YouTube on X under that handle. state prophet. Welcome back to the show, my friend. Thank you for having me. I'm very happy to be here. Yeah. Well, we're happy to have you. So for those of you in the audience who are maybe not aware of Ridvan's story, he was born and raised, a Muslim, and then sort of broke away from the faith, and now he's a Christian, which is excellent. But he gives incredible insights about the Muslim mindset, the frame of mind, their ideology. And so, Ridvan, I tasked you with a specific task to go figure out what the vibe is in Iran right now. The people on the ground, I know you have a lot

of Iranian friends, Persian friends. So what is the vibe in Iran? And ultimately that leads to the next question. Are they going to rise up? Okay. Well, it's very complicated. I know it's very complicated. I talked to many Iranians over the last few days. I have been following the whole situation very closely. Talked to Iranians. I speak to Iranians who live outside of Iran. Some that are inside Iran, some that are outside and communicate with families inside Iran. The situation is very complicated. What people need to understand is that the people of Iran haven't had access to the internet for, I think, 31 days now. So it's been more than a month. The internet has been entirely and completely shut down by the Islamic Republic, the Islamic regime, with the excuse that they have to tackle misinformation and international global foreign interference and all that.

But shutting down your own people's access to the internet is, of course, a very miserable way to treat your own people. And it's clear why this is being done. It's to prevent organizing, to prevent mobilization. to prevent people communicating with each other. So the average Iranian has great difficulties accessing information and understanding what's actually going on. Those Iranians that we see, we usually see video recordings. We receive some limited information.

The majority of Iranians are going to the latest research of all different sources say that over 85 to 90% of Iranians despise the Islamic Republic that is in charge and want it gone. So they have no good feelings about this government. Many of them look with hope at the current war. I know for some people, it seems like it's a little bit puzzling and confusing that they would cheer on the bombing of their own country, but that's not really what it's happening.

The current US and Israeli strikes are vastly carried out on military sites and government facilities vastly, not exclusively but vastly. The Iranians generally seem to be happy about it and celebrate it. You can see them sharing videos of themselves singing about it and smiling and enjoying it and hoping for the downfall of the Islamic regime. The problem is that the Islamic regime is a strongly and firmly embedded regime, an authoritarian government that also has its own militia and its own forces. So Iran has two separate militaries, the regular national military,

and then the one that is purely loyal to the Islamic regime, that is an Islamic military, and that military is very vicious and very loyal to the Islamic regime. They have their own special forces of a siege. They have the IRGC, which is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is all about protecting Islam and the ambitions of the Islamic Republic. Those people are the problem, because as much as the people of Iran are willing,

to get rid of this regime, they are dealing with a very, very barbaric, very ruthless, very vicious force that is loyal to the Islamic regime. They might make up only less than 10 percent, those who are loyal to the regime might only make up less than 10 percent of the population, but they have very strong organized military and police forces that protect them and that have no issues shooting down civilians in masses in the thousands if they mobilize, which is a why we have not seen much of an uprising, and I'm sure you're going to ask that as a follow-up. But so that's the situation right now.

People are hopeful that this will, that America and Israel will together do something to weaken and destroy this Islamic regime, but they are also a little bit uncertain and frightened, also because Donald Trump has kind of sent mixed messages to the people of Iran, such as the latest is stay inside while bombs are falling, but also at the same time seize the moment and be ambitious,

make the change and all that. So there is uncertainty, there is hope, there is some fear, but I would say the most dominant feeling that I perceive from Iran is that there is hope at the moment. Obviously we hope you're right, Ridvan, but at the same time, I guess I just, I sometimes wonder if when we see these clips or when we see these narratives, like, are we being worked? Because I feel like certainly before the strikes were launched, I think I perceived on X, I perceived on media, a lot of efforts to sell like, oh, it's really on the tipping point.

It's clearly just about to fall and it looks really convincing. And then strikes happen. And it's not even that the government doesn't collapse. It's that there's not obvious signs that it would be on the ropes. And I guess inevitably, is it the case that when we're seeing videos come out of countries like Iran, we are going to see the people who are most likely to have access to the Internet, have access to smartphones, have access to stuff, even when there's the middle of a war going on.

And that's just not going to be a representative group for a country like Iran, where there are rural people, poorer people, who are more likely to be backing a fundamentalist regime like this one. So first again, I would like to establish, I mean, these are legitimate, concerns and questions. So according to all the research, even by Iranian organizations, Gamman and certain others, when the Iranian people themselves are polled, this is prior to the war, when they are polled and asked about their opinions on the government and who or what should be in charge, over 85% of them say that the Islamic regime should not be in charge.

the most popular option for people to pick as for who should be in charge is half or up to a half of the population says that the crown prince Reza Pahlavi should take over and should lead the country towards some kind of democracy or something like that so the people are really really severely disheartened much of the videos that come out are many of the videos that come out, come out after blackouts, when somebody records something, then we wait for a while,

and then they somehow gain access to the internet, they publish it, and then we see it. So I do have a lot of sources, a lot of people, I can recommend many people who are doing this all the time. One of those is a Canadian politician, former politician actually,

who was kicked out because she was speaking about, you know, critically about Islam, Goldie Amari. she posts about this or reports about this and talks to Iranians within Iran every day. And so the sentiments there are generally that the people have hope. Now there is one misunderstanding, which is you mentioned tipping point. I was also at the beginning of this war very careful to say that the Islamic regime is about to die or about to crumble. I was sure that the supreme leader, Chaminet, would die and be killed.

He was on the list very high of people who are to be killed. But the Islamic regime, as I said, is not necessarily at a very terrible tipping point. They are weakened, but even when they are weak, they have a very firm ideology that they stand by. They are hardcore ideologues and loyalists. If they only had three people left in that government, they would still not give up and they would still fire whatever they have at their surroundings in order to. to survive. This is not a government that actually cares about the people. Think about it this way. If in a Western nation, the majority of the population walked toward their government buildings and demanded that the government steps down, in a civilized Western society, the government would

most likely eventually give up. In Iran, Iranians are also very, very much unlike most of the Middle Eastern people, but their government is a very barbaric Islamist regime. And they don't understand any of this. If the entire population walked toward the government and demanded them to step down, they would have no problem shooting down and mowing down the entire population in order to preserve their ideology and their ideological apocalyptic government, which has the ambitions of bringing about their end-time figure and expanding Islam or Shia Islam to the whole world.

So there is also one aspect, which is at the beginning of the war, Israel itself was trying to explore whether they could help the Iranian people overthrow the regime. The latest reports are that the Israeli government itself is a little bit frustrated because they don't seem to really be able to mobilize the Iranian people. It's because the Iranian people are scared. The last time they stood up, the last few times they stood up, they were massacred. Just a few months ago in January, over 30,000. thousand of them were killed. Hi folks, Andrew Colvette here.

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And remember, YREFI doesn't care what your credit score is. Just go to whyrefi.com and tell them your friend Andrews sent you. I'm going to play this cut here from Prince Reza Polavi at CPAC, SOT5. For the goodwill between our two people, which you see on vibrant display here today, to continue, we must finish the job. This regime in its entirety must go if we do not finish the job and leave a rump of the regime in place. The threat posed by this Islamic Republic will not be solved. only be made worse. Terrorists cannot be trusted to bring peace. There are thugs. They are not dealmakers. They are agents of chaos. All right. So, Ridvan, we've got this juxtaposition here, right?

Where you hear Reyes is saying, we've got to have regime change. Trump is like, well, we've already had regime change because the guys I'm working with right now are really nice. And then we just got a report from Breitbart saying Israel will decline to join any ground operations Americans might launch in Iran. There's all kinds of mixed signals. Do we need boots on the ground to get this done, to get this mission accomplished, to get the overthrow of the regime? And is that, we're against that. I'll just be really honest. We're against that on the show. And so does that need it? Because they're not armed. The IRGC is armed. That's why they mow people down in the streets. How do you overthrow this regime without boots on the ground?

Israel says they're not going to help. Reza says we've got to get regime change. Make it all make sense. And that's also one of the main issues why the Iranians are not really rising up to overthrow the regime. Rising up to overthrow the regime is not something that the Iranian population would really be, you know, would lovingly do. It would result in mass violence and killings. And it's not a very good Iranian trait that they are really. really into, unlike most of the other Middle Eastern or Arab countries, for example.

It is a very difficult situation. It depends on what's really, what the plan really is. The thing is that Donald Trump and Netanyahu both said that there is no future for this entire regime. So the regime must go. But then Trump also said that he's actually in good talks with the current Iranian leadership, whereas the Iranian side said we are actually not. So we're seeing. leaving lots of mixed signals and there is a complex situation on the ground. The Iranian military says there are no talks, we will not surrender to any of your demands, you will lose this war publishing Lego AI videos and things like that. What the American government currently demands from them is that they completely roll back their nuclear enrichment program because

Iran made it very clear that they plan to enrich uranium to absurd levels of 60 or 80 or 90. And civilian, reasonable civilian use is capped at 5%. So they are clearly aiming for military use. To dismantle most of the nuclear facilities, to stop completely and disband all their proxy military units like the Hezbollah, the Houthis and all that, Iran is not going to do these things. Any kind of peace deal that might be reached

will be a temporary one. And if there is a peace deal that will be reached, we will be in no time back to fighting again after this, maybe in months, maybe in a few years. So the regime needs to go. It needs to change. It is also, I would say from my perspective, a moral issue. This is a regime that brutally mistreats and kills its population over nothing, over women or girls refusing to cover themselves properly and all that. For a power like America, it would be a good and moral thing to help.

them take out this regime. That said, I also would not like to see boots on the ground in the traditional way. It would be a very difficult situation. It would bring suffering to America, to Americans, and it could also escalate very quickly and result in massive bloodshed over there. What I do think is reasonable is if America and Israel take this seriously and, you know, gain complete air superiority over Iran, which is, by the way, one of the goals of the of the of the of the proposed peace deal to have complete you know intrusive surveillance over Iran. If they gain proper air superiority, I think the only way that boots on the ground could be done would be to send in a special force to take out certain targets and then to establish a you know a a proper

force for the people inside that country. But that is I am at this point just speculating and and wishing and hoping for something. But it's unclear what's going to come here. It makes me concerned where people say, as you say, the regime is bad, the regime must go. But if we're going to say the regime must go, what is actually the expense we're willing to bear? Because I think if you could topple this government

entirely with air power, it would have happened by now. And so instead, once you're committing troops, well, it's a country, what is it, three times the size of, of, I think three times the size of Ukraine. It's like five times the size of Texas, something like that. 90 million people, very rugged, very mountainous. It's got a lot of big cities.

It's got a lot of deserts. It's got a lot of mountain forests. And I don't think a few thousand people could topple that government. You would actually need a big commitment. And at that point, I don't think we have the political lift for that in the United States. I don't think we have the readiness to spend that sort of thing. you're stuck asking yourselves, okay, we say the regime must go, but do we actually think that? Or can we tolerate some sort of lesser arrangement?

My issue is then it's like, well, listen, I don't want a nation build. I mean, I want regime change for the Iranian people, but I want stuff for America, too. And the whole time we're focused on this, we're not spending $200 billion here at home to get it fixed. You know what I mean? So I just, as an American, you're kind of going, okay, if we can't get everything we want, but we can get the straight of Hormuz open and we can get, you know, no nooks, end of their ballistic missiles, whatever.

Is that good enough, right? At some point, Iranians need to take this into their own hands. And maybe Raza can do it. Maybe he can spark this revolution. Maybe. I mean, he tries to appeal to the loyal forces all the time. The issue is, so there is one conversation that people have and that people raise, which is that the Islamic regime in Iran

does not pose an imminent threat to the United States of America. I agree that it doesn't pose an imminent threat to the United States of America. However, it does pose a threat overall. And, you know, when you have a very vicious, fierce enemy, you usually don't wait until they pose an imminent threat. So even if it is simply for our own interests, if America just lets them be and comes out with a deal that prevents them from advancing their nuclear enrichment program,

First of, I do not believe for a second that the Islamic regime will actually honor that. Secondly, the Islamic regime has it in their constitution and in their words the entire time. Make no mistake. They are expanding their ballistic missile capabilities. Their slogan, their most popular slogan, has been for 40 years now, death to America and death to Israel. America is the great Satan, Israel is the small Satan. Yeah, we got to wrap up. We're running out of time here.

but your point is well made. Thank you for making the time. Thank you. We're praying for success in a quick wrap-up to this conflict in Iran. Thank you, my friend. We'll talk to you again soon. For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to charliekirk.com.