The 11th Hour Breakthrough | Episode 263

Hey, good morning. Welcome to Vince on a Wednesday. It is great to have you with us. And how about that? A deadline arrived and no strikes. Why is that? Because a breakthrough negotiations occurred last night just before the president's deadline. Massive news ahead on everything that's transpired between the United States and Iran and how President Trump pulled it off. It's all ahead on this edition of Vince. Also, we're gonna take a closer look at going after fraud across the country. The United States Department of Justice, serious about this, urged by President Trump to do that. And we saw Todd Blanc step up to the microphone yesterday and explain it. And then we saw reporters ask him very stupid questions. And he slam dunked them for their very stupid questions. I've got all of that ahead on this edition of Vince. It is always so great to have you with us. The best audience anywhere. Hello, good morning, Chad. Good morning, Chad. It's gonna be a very busy day today. We've got a lot going on. Let's get right into it. I wanna thank one of our sponsors today to start us off. That is Bowl and Branch, which helps me sleep very well at night. There's a point in life where sleep stops being optional. You've spent years taking care of everybody else in your life, kids, work, all of it. And suddenly you realize how your sleep is affecting everything, energy, mood, focus, your health. This is where Bowl and Branch comes in. They're organic cotton sheets, plush pillows, breathable blankets, temperature-regulating comforters. They're all designed for real rest, the kind you don't compromise on anymore. Everything feels incredibly soft. It's breathable. And it's built to get better over time with every wash. Before Bowl and Branch, our sheets were not great. Not great, corners popping off, the bed always felt too warm. Just not exactly right. The first night we switched, we could tell the quality immediately. Softer, cooler, more inviting. And after a couple of washes, it's even better. So you can upgrade your sleep with Bowl and Branch. Do what Allison did for my bed. It's amazing. So, you can get 15% off your first order plus free shipping at bolandbranch.com slash Vince. With the code Vince, that's Boland Branch, B-O-L-L-A-N-D, branch.com slash Vince. Code Vince and unlock 15% off. Exclusions apply. See Boland Branch.com for details. ["Boland Branch"] Hmm, what a world. What a world. The president gave a mighty ultimatum yesterday. He said, you better come to the table. You better start making a deal with me or else we're gonna blow you to smithereens. Smith-er-eens. I didn't use that word, but he did say that civilizational destruction was en route to Iran, which got the whole internet going crazy yesterday. Did you guys see this yesterday? People were going absolutely ape over the fact that the president said that he was about to destroy an entire civilization. And you know, it's interesting as soon as I saw that I go, well, this is typical. This is typical Donald Trump. Donald Trump is maximum carrot and maximum stick. It's always that way. Every negotiation that this guy uses is, it's always I'm gonna make your world incredible, but if you fail me, I will destroy you. Those are the options. So pick one. You can pick the one you like. You wanna have an amazing future or do you wanna be remembered as a complete failure? These are your options. And every single time it's the same exact thing. And then you get a bunch of chicken littles running around going absolutely ape, just going crazy. And the reality is you need to keep cool, my babies. This is why I tweeted last night, keep cool, my babies. And that's it, of course, it was all due credit to Conan O'Brien years ago. He came up with that. Keep cool, my babies, just keep your head on right. You know, just a little bit of, you know, masculine foot planting. Just plant your feet, survey the atmosphere, and then kind of like, you know, remember how the president operates. And he operates pretty well. If you go back in time, in terms of the way the president has conducted this business in the past, let me show you something. You remember back in 2017, President Trump was dealing with an out of control North Korea and Kim Jong-un. And Kim Jong-un kept threatening to like destroy America. He was just getting really belligerent and out of control. And he was doing this nuclear missile testing, firing in the direction of the Hawaiian islands. There was a lot going on. And the president took time out of an opioid meeting, an opioid meeting, to say, to send a message to North Korea. And here's the message he sent at the time. Remember this one? North Korea, best not. Stand by, hold up. Let me make sure I get you the audio correctly. Here it is. Here's the president at the time. North Korea, best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury, like the world has never seen. North Korea. Yeah. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. What did the president achieve with that statement? Does anybody remember the history of this? After he made that statement, he shook free historic diplomacy with North Korea. Meetings with Kim Jong-un. They decreased their nuclear missile testing dramatically. They actually were making ovations to the United States to try and improve the quality of the relationship. The president came in with a clear goal. In 2017, we have to stop the belligerence of a nuclear-ized North Korea. North Korea already has and had at the time, nuclear weapons. And the president's overriding priority was how do I mitigate that threat? And that's what he came up with. He threatened them in the compliance. He meets with them and he decreases their belligerence. That's a huge deal. And so here he is talking about Iran, an issue that he's been talking about his entire political life and even before that. From the moment he came down the golden escalator in 2015, he said we need to denuclearize Iran. And here he is pursuing it with success. They strike the nuclear facilities last year. They take out as much of the nuclear stockpiles as they can. And now as Iran was developing this massive conventional weapons arsenal to try and safeguard its ability to rebuild the nuclear program, President Trump cut them off at the pass, beat them into submission. And now they've come to the table and they say they wanna make a deal. They've cried uncle, no more, no more. Here's what developed last night. President Trump posting to Truth Social at let's see, 6.32 PM Eastern time last night. He said based on conversations with Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir of Pakistan, Pakistan involved in the negotiations last night. Wherein they requested I hold off the destructive force being sent tonight to Iran and subject to the Islamic Republic of Iran agreeing to the complete, immediate and safe opening of the Strait of Hormuz. I agree to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks. This will be a double-sided ceasefire. The reason for doing so is that we've already met and exceeded all of our military objectives. Yet we destroyed their whole air force. We sunk their Navy. We're destroying all their missile stockpiles. We're very far along with a definitive agreement concerning the long-term peace with Iran and peace in the Middle East. We received a 10 point proposal from Iran and believe it is a workable basis on which to negotiate. Almost all of the various points to past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the agreement to be finalized and consummated. On behalf of the United States of America as president and also representing the countries of the Middle East, it is an honor to have this long-term problem close to resolution. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. So a bunch of people breathing a sigh of relief. The markets, by the way, instantly popping last night. Oil futures just absolutely plummeting. The cost per barrel dropping immediately below $100. Just massive improvements very quickly to the markets as a calm set in. A bunch of, excuse me, among a bunch of people who were absolutely panicking about where this thing went next. On the Iranian side, the Iranian foreign minister, Syed Abbas Aragachi, said the following. He said, on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran, oh my gosh, here it is. On behalf of the Islamic Republic of Iran, I express gratitude and appreciation for my dear brothers, His Excellency, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, and His Excellency, the Field Marshal of Pakistan, for their tireless efforts to end the war in the region. He said, in response to these brotherly requests, we are considering the United States as a 15-point proposal, as well as the President's announcement of accepting the 10-point proposal as a general framework from Iran as a basis for negotiations. I hereby declare that if attacks against Iran are halted, this made me laugh, our powerful armed forces will cease their defensive operations. Literally, as I'm reading this live last night, I'm laughing at myself. Our powerful armed forces, for a period of two weeks, safe passes to the straight-of-our-moves will be possible. We'll be in coordination with Iran's armed forces and with due consideration of technical limitations. Says Iran. Got it. So now we're in an actual negotiation. Suddenly, we were able to shake free a meaningful negotiation where the United States has offered a 15-point plan. What are the primary two points, which is stop attacking shipping in the straight-of-our-moves and get rid of your nuclear material? Those are the two big priorities. Forget the rest of the 15. Those are the two big priorities. And then for the Iranians, what is their 10-point plan? What is President Trump working with here? Well, the Guardian has a summary of this, what's in the 10-point plan. And they say that the Iranians are demanding the following, and they don't have all 10 points listed out, but they say the list published by Iranian media includes a number of conditions. The lifting of all primary and secondary sanctions on Iran. They want their sanctions lifted. I'm telling you what right now, Iran, if you actually play ball with President Trump and you get rid of your nuclear program and you open up the straight-of-our-moves, you do all these things, you stop your terrorism, your future can be very bright. The whole reason sanctions are imposed upon you is because of your nuclear program, threatening the straight-of-our-moves and conducting terror attacks in the region. You stop all that crap, you lose these sanctions. So that's easy. You want that? That one's easy. President Trump will play ball with that. If you knock off your garbage, they say continued Iranian control over the straight-of-our-moves is what they want. Interestingly, the president spoke to a reporter this morning, I'm seeing on X state immediately, that he once again on the phone reports today, and he spoke to Jonathan Carl of ABC News about this. And here's what Jonathan says. He said, I just got off the phone with the president. I asked if he was okay with the Iranians charging a toll for all ships that go through the straight-of-our-moves. He told me that there actually may be a joint US-Iran venture to charge tolls. So here's that this is the president negotiating, how can we get a piece of the action here? We're thinking of doing it as a joint venture, the president said. It's a way of securing it, also securing it from lots of other people. It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. So here's the president saying, okay, I can work with this. We can figure out a way to make this happen. I'm a deal maker. Here's another one. The US military's withdrawal from the Middle East is an Iranian demand. I don't anticipate that that's actually gonna be the case. I don't know what, that's, the rest of the Middle East is very happy with the United States. So the idea that we would leave the entire Middle East doesn't seem likely. I don't think the Trump administration is gonna do that. An end to attacks on Iran and its allies, well, sure. You stop being belligerent idiots, then we'll stop attacking you. The release of frozen Iranian assets, sure, that would be the drop of sanctions. And the UN Security Council resolution making any deal binding, not, nobody here cares about that. The UN is nothing. The UN is ridiculous operation. So if they wanna send out some ceremonial letter, by all means. But this is what the Iranians want. Now, the Guardian points out, which is kind of an interesting and almost hilarious acknowledgement. They said in a version that was released in Farsi, Iran also included the phrase, acceptance of enrichment for its nuclear program. Yeah, that's not gonna happen. That's not gonna happen. That's a non-starter. And we've got all the leverage in this conversation. So yeah, that's not happening at all. But for reasons that remain unclear, that phrase was missing in English versions shared by Iranian diplomats to journalists. Hilarious. Why do you think they left it out of the English language versions, Guardian? Come on, what do you mean? For reasons that were unclear. It's clear to any thinking person why they would exclude that detail from the English language summary of their demands. Of course, hysterical. They wanna pursue nuclear weapons. That's why. And they're not trying. They don't want the English speaking world to dwell on that. Now, how did this happen? How did we get to this breaking news? Well, it took a lot of behind the scenes negotiations. And there is reporting this morning that there were two very critical parties who were involved in this that helped get this to the point that we saw last night. One of them was the vice president of the United States. Multiple reports are indicating that vice president J.D. Vance got involved in negotiations late Tuesday and was able to help bring this to kind of a final resolution or at least this intermediary resolution right now, which is great news. The other is China. The Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government got involved yesterday and has been involved. And here's what the reporting tells us. We've seen this. Here's the Associated Press, a woman by the name of Farnousha Meery. She says, an official from one of the mediating countries tells me that the 11th hour deal between the United States and Iran came together after the involvement of two unlikely actors. Vice president J.D. Vance, it's actually not that unlikely. President Trump's been saying J.D. Vance has been essential to the negotiations, but whatever. And China, China. So Vance was looped in late Tuesday, she says, and China helped get Iran on board. I mentioned to you yesterday that China needs the Strait of Hormuz to be open. It needs it. Why is that? Because somewhere between 40 to 50% of all of their oil and gas comes through the Strait of Hormuz. China has so much on the line here. And so, just again, to the president's credit, understand where we were. A week ago, the president was outraged, and he has been outraged by the lack of involvement of the global community to assist us in resolving this entire crisis. The president said, I'm taking care of a terror threat. I'm denuclearizing Iran. We're finally cleaning up a mess that's been there for 47 years. Where the hell are the rest of you? Where's NATO? Where are the Asian countries? Where are all these countries who are dependent on the energy that flows through that region? You're not gonna be a part of this? You're not gonna assist us at all? And what happened? We got Middle Eastern countries who all rushed in, Pakistan rushed in, they're playing mediators to try and make this thing come to an end. They want this thing to come to an end. And meanwhile, China gets involved because its own energy future is on the line, and now it's a part of helping us negotiate an end to this war, to this conflict. So the president was able to score a lot of victories here and get the whole world to wake the hell up. That's how we get here. This is a victory for the United States that President Trump and our incredible military made happen. Caroline Levitt sharing this message last night. From the very beginning of Operation Epic Fury, President Trump did estimate that this would be a four to six week operation. Thanks to the unbelievable capabilities of our warriors, we have achieved and exceeded our core military objectives in 38 days. Ladies and gentlemen, pay attention to the timetable that the White House is giving us right now. Four to six weeks was the operation they say. We've exceeded and achieved our core military objectives in now 38 days. The way the White House is now talking about this is we're essentially done. Now it's just a matter of working out the details that are gonna appear on paper, getting Iran to agree to this deal. But a negotiation, a very real one is underway. I've seen some reporting that this, we can have in-person negotiations as early as the end of this week, perhaps by Friday of this week, you could see a major administration official overseas meeting at a table directly with the Iranians. Keep your eyes open for that. The Secretary of War and Chairman Dan Cain, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, addressing the press this morning about all the details. Caroline Levitt says, the success of our military created maximum leverage, allowing President Trump and the team to engage in tough negotiations that have now created an opening for a diplomatic solution and long-term peace. Additionally, President Trump got the straight of hormones reopened, never underestimate President Trump's ability to successfully advance America's interests and broker peace. So again, this is an operation, they said four to six weeks. Here we are still inside of that window, and it looks like the White House is ready to say, we've done what we came to do. We've done exactly what we came to do, which is an amazing development. Now, there is a very interesting piece that I wanna take you through a little bit here in a moment. And it's in the New York Times today. The New York Times has what you might call a TikTok, a breakdown the moment by moment, blow by blow way that the President made the decision to go to war. And I'm gonna tell you, I'm just gonna, the spoiler alert on this piece is immediately you realize how thoughtful and how competent and how deliberative the President of the United States was in all of this. There was nothing impulsive about this. There was no hip firing going on. There was a clear eyed assessment of what they were about to do and what they engaged in as they went into Iran. And for that matter, there was a pushback on the Israelis, because the Israelis had all these big schemes that they wanted to play out here. And the American government, all the advisors around the President and the President himself said, no, some of this is within their words, quote, bullshit. We're not doing that. We have goals. We have goals. We can achieve those ones. That's what we're going to do. I wanna take you through that in just a moment, because I think it colors in the lines quite a bit about what was happening behind the scenes and the kind of really healthy environment that exists around the President of the United States. He's got a lot of advisors, not all of them agree with each other, but they had a very healthy and meaningful debate. They made a decision and they all went in together. This is the way it's supposed to work. This is the way it's supposed to work. I'll take you through it in just a moment. I wanna thank Pocket Hose for being a great sponsor of our program. It's the world's number one expandable hose. Do you have a Pocket Hose yet? You should get one. If you've ever wrestled with one of the old fashioned rubber hoses, you know that that is a pain. It adds a bunch of headache to what should be a simple task, which is to just get some water out of a hose, then you're like coiling it back up, trying to make it perfect. You don't want, it's getting kinked. It's all a mess. Now with Copperheads, Pocket Pivot, it's just an amazing thing because it fixes all of that with a full 360 degree swivel. It gives you smooth, steady water flow and total freedom to move around your yard with ease. And when you're finished watering, it's a rust-proof, anti-burst hose that does something amazing. It actually just shrinks right back down the size. Pocket size. No heavy lifting, no wrestling it back onto the reel. The brand new Pocket Hose Copperhead with Pocket Pivot, it's a total game changer. I love using it because right after I'm done, I've just got, I've got like, I don't, you know, you don't have to use like a big coil for it. I just have a little, like kind of decorative bucket. I dropped the hose on it and there it is. It's, it shrinks back down to this little tiny, you know, pile and then, and then it's easy to pull out and no tangling, no issues. Watering the yard has never been easier. For a limited time, my listeners can get a free Pocket Pivot and their 10-pattern sprayer with the purchase of any size Copperhead hose, just text Vince to 64,000. That's Vince to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase. Vince to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. Thank you to Pocket Hose. So good. All right. So the New York Times has this great piece that, you know, I'm, you never, you never quite know how much they nail the details, but this piece rings to me as a very true recitation of the facts. And here's what they said. How Trump took the U.S. to war with Iran is the headline on the piece. And you can mostly ignore the headline. I mean, fundamentally, it's about, you know, what's the back and forth? And the scene setter, the piece begins by describing a meeting on February 11th when Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the White House and makes the case that now is the time to strike Iran. This is the time. So he's trying to convince the United States that this is a worthwhile endeavor. And he makes a number of asks. In fact, the U.S. intelligence community breaks it down into four components that Netanyahu asked for. And the U.S. intelligence community reviewed it and then they came back to the president and then they said, two of these are achievable. Two of these are ridiculous. Here's what they said. The results of the U.S. intelligence analysis were shared on February 12th with the president. And a meeting for only American officials in the situation room. Before Mr. Trump arrived, two senior intel officials briefed the president's inner circle. The intel officials had deep expertise in U.S. military capabilities and they knew the Iranian system and its players inside out. They broke down Netanyahu's presentation into four parts. First was decapitation, killing the Ayatollah. Second was crippling Iran's capacity to project power and threaten its neighbors. Third was a popular uprising inside of Iran. In other words, Netanyahu was hoping to arm everybody and get an uprising going and overthrow the regime and fourth was regime change with a secular leader installed to govern the country. The U.S. officials assessed that the first two objectives were achievable. Those first two, remember that's kill the Ayatollah and cripple Iran's military. Those, we can definitely do that. But fomenting an uprising, regime change? Yeah, that's way more complicated. And Netanyahu's pitch was detached from reality, if U.S. intel assessment was. So when Mr. Trump joined the meeting, John Ratcliffe briefed him on the assessment. The CIA director used one word to describe the Israeli prime minister's regime change scenario, farcical. It's a farce, not achievable. At that point, Mr. Rubio cut in, Secretary Rubio, quote, in other words, it's bullshit, said Rubio. Listen to how clear these guys are. These are not guys who are being yanked around by Israel, they're not being led around by the no's by the Israelis. These are guys who are saying, well, these two things are achievable, these are in our interest, those other two, Netanyahu's like way overstating what's possible here. Let's just ignore that. So Ratcliffe added that given the unpredictability of events in any conflict, regime change could happen, could, but it shouldn't be considered an achievable objective. General Cain weighed in, he was asked by the president what he thought. He said, sir, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis, what they're doing, they oversell and their plans are not always well developed. They know they need us and that's why they're hard selling. Mr. Trump quickly weighed the assessment. Regime change, he said, would be, quote, their problem, their problem, but he appeared to remain very interested in accomplishing parts one and two, okay? So here's the president deliberating, talking about how we do this, what's actually achievable, what's in the American interest, how out of control Israel is being here. And then the other piece was, what did these guys all think of going in? And so the president asked each of his cabinet members what they thought of all of this. And it came down to, in the end, that JD Vance expressed skepticism about going in. This is, here's Thursday, February 26th. Let me take you to that moment. He said they had a final situation room meeting. It got underway. By now the positions of everybody in the room were clear. Everybody had discussed everything in previous meetings. Everybody knew where everybody else stood. The discussion would last about an hour and a half. Listen now, a healthy and productive this is, guys. This is the way adults handle conversations. This is the way a healthy administration conducts this. Mr. Trump was in his usual place at the head of the table. To his right sat the vice president, next to Mr. Vance was Suzy Wiles, then John Ratcliffe, then the White House counsel, David Warrington, then Stephen Shung, who's the White House comms director, and then there's Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, and then General Cain, Pete Hegzeff, and Marco Rubio. They kept it tight, the group. Mr. Hegzeff and Mr. Cain ran through the sequencing of attacks. Then Mr. Trump went around the table and got everybody's views. JD Vance, whose disagreement with the whole premise was well established, addressed the president. You know, I think it's a bad idea, but if you do it, I will support you. In other words, the president asked for JD Vance's advice. He disagreed with going in or disagreed with some element of it. We don't quite know. We're just kind of relying on the New York Times recitation here. He goes, but whatever you do here, I'm supporting you. And the report that the New York Times said that JD Vance said, if you're going to do it, we've got to do it hard. So if you're going to go in, we absolutely have to achieve our objectives. So we can't know half measures. We got to decimate them. That was JD Vance. So is there anything wrong with that, ladies and gentlemen? Is there anything wrong with being asked for your advice, giving your authentic take, and then when the president makes his decision, just going full bore on behalf of the American people? How about, no, there's nothing wrong with that. That's precisely what I would expect out of a vice president or anybody else in a trusting relationship with the president of the United States. Suzy Wiles told President Trump that if he felt he needed to proceed for America's national security, he should do it. John Ratcliffe offered no opinion on whether to proceed, but he discussed the stunning new intel that the Iranian leadership was about to get together on that fateful Saturday morning. The CIA director said that the regime change was possible, depending on how we would define the term. If we mean just killing the supreme leader, yeah, we can probably do that. Which is why, by the way, you've heard the president say over and over, the regime has changed, because the old regime is dead. All the people at the top are dead. When calling on Mr. Warrington, that's the White House counsel, he just said it was all legally permissible to conduct the operation the way the president had laid it out. He didn't offer a personal opinion, but the president pressed him, and he said as a Marine veteran, he knew an American service member killed by Iran years earlier. That issue was deeply personal to him. So the president asked him for his actual thoughts, and he gave them. Stephen Chung warned the president about the risks of engaging in wars overseas. He said people had not voted for conflict. The plans he warned also flew in the face of what the administration had been saying about the bombing campaign against Iran last year. In other words, when we thought we destroyed their nuclear program, why are we going in in light of the fact that the nuclear threat still exists? How can we say both things at the same time? Stephen Chung is asking. And I think the answer to that, by the way, is completely resolved. Yes, we destroyed the totality of their nuclear program last year, set them back many years. But their ambitions to rebuild it included building a conventional missile shield to try and stop anybody from upending their nuclear development, again, going into the future. And so now we're trying to get all of the uranium out of the country. We want all of that material out. That's one of the details that the president's pursuing. And we get this. Caroline Lev had told the president, this was of course his decision, and that the press team would handle it the best that they could, which of course should be the way they operate. Pete Hegseth adopted a narrow position. They would have to take care of the Iranians eventually so they might as well do it now. And he offered technical assessments. They could run the campaign in a certain amount of time with a given level of forces. General Cain was sober. He laid out the risks and what the campaign would mean for munitions depletion, in other words, what we would have to expend. He offered no opinion. His position was merely, if you ordered it, we'll execute. Sounds like a general officer to me. It sounds like the kind of general officer you want around you. Just neutral and non-emotional advice. And then when it was his turn to speak, Marco Rubio offered more clarity. He told the president, if our goal is regime change or an uprising, we shouldn't do it. But if the goal is to destroy Iran's missile program, that's a goal we can achieve. Everybody deferred to the president's instincts. No one would impede him. Quote, I think we need to do it, the president told the room. Abort Air Force One the next afternoon, he gave the order. He sent it out and he said, Operation Epic Fury is approved. No aborts, good luck. I just described to you the way a presidency is supposed to work. The way big foreign policy decisions are supposed to be conducted. The media, including the New York Times, for that matter, traditionally, they often describe President Trump as impulsive, that he's just making ridiculous hip shots, that he's some out of control authoritarian, that he doesn't care about whether or not it's legal or constitutional. And what I just described to you is a guy who is considering every element in an honest, thoughtful, deliberative way. Does this fit with my goals for the American people? What is actually achievable? Is it legal? He's got the White House counsel in the room. What do all of my top advisors, who I trust in this term, think about this? Give me your honest assessments. And then every single one of those people, when the president made the call, they all saluted and they got to work following the president's agenda, not subverting him, working with him. This is what I voted for. That is what I voted for. I'm very, very proud of these guys. These are very big decisions. These are very high-stakes decisions. And yesterday, it's crystal clear that they paid off, meaningful progress being made, massive breakthrough as the president of the United States conducts foreign policy on behalf of the rest of us. I'll get to more in just a moment. We've got a lot more to discuss, including what's going on domestically, because there's a new push on Capitol Hill to betray the American people. And I'd like to put a stop to it, wouldn't you? We should do that. More ahead on this edition of Vince. All right, let's thank a great sponsor. I want to welcome to the show and thank Better Wild, which is an amazing sponsor. And here's why. I'm a dog owner. I've got Major and I've got Raina. I love my dogs. I really do. And in addition to being focused on our own wellness for my family, my dogs are part of my family too. I love these dogs and I want them to just be in great shape. And sometimes you notice, you ever notice like your dog sneezing a lot, they got the allergies to something that you start acting up. Dog allergies often start in the gut. They'll be scratching. When their digestion is out of balance, it shows up everywhere, skin, ears, energy, and even digestion. That discovery is why I'm so happy to be connected with Better Wild's allergy relief soft shoes. They're great and they're designed to help support your dog's allergy defenses from the inside out instead of just covering up symptoms. Now my dogs, they're great and they take these and they love the flavor and it's led to less itching, way more energy. Better Wild uses veterinarian-approved, clinically proven ingredients and genuinely gives me peace of mind knowing that I'm supporting my dog's wellness at the source. So right now, Better Wild is offering you up to 40% off your order at betterwild.com slash vince. That's betterwild.com slash vince for up to 40% off your order. Betterwild.com slash vince, these statements and products have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat cure or prevent any animal disease or condition. I wanna also thank another great sponsor of our program and that is DOS. Do you know about DOS? DOS is good, DOS is very good. There's a rising level of liver health crisis all across our country right now. And for the average person, it might be hard to completely avoid, truly. Modern life moves very fast, stress is high, diets aren't perfect. And a lot of people are realizing that they need to pay closer attention to how they support their overall wellness. And more Americans are turning to gentler alternatives with ingredients that they recognize like CoQ10, ginger, pomegranate, amla. And one of those alternatives is DOS. For cholesterol, DOS for cholesterol is a clinically backed cholesterol support supplement. It supports triglycerides, HDL, total cholesterol levels. And people on our team have been using DOS and are very encouraged by what they've seen in their life and literally in their blood work. And we only, at this operation, we're only talking about products that we actually use or the people around us are actually using and like. And new customers with DOS can save 35% on your first month of subscriptions by going to dosedaily.co slash Vince, or just entering Vince at checkout, you can do that. That's D-O-S-E-D-A-I-L-Y dot co slash Vince, dosedaily.co slash Vince, for 35% off your first month subscription. These statements from products have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. All right, yes, we need regime change in the US Senate. It says Raccoon 66. Is it raccoon or arcoon? Arcoon maybe? Yeah, anyway. Yeah, majors in the house, hello major. What's up buddy? Major, stop by. Major heard me talking about him. Let me see, can I give you a, yeah, give you a major cam of some kind here. Let's see, for those of you, this is a rumble exclusive to be able to see major. Majors in the house, major here. Please, please, sit down. Good boy, good boy. Look at major. Sit down buddy, you gotta keep, you gotta get your face into the camera, man. There you go, look at that. He's a star, he's a star. I love major. Now major's really good, he's a great dog. He's so funny, we had company last night and if you ever come over to my house, major will roll over in front of you and just push his body up against you. He's not gonna kill anybody, I have to admit. I'm pretty sure if somebody broke into my house, this dog is straight up just gonna hug him. My other dog, Raina, will go ballistic. She's an alarm, she'll go nuts, but major's a lover. Major's a lover, not a fighter. Good dog. All right, let's talk about problems. I got a problem, it's Capitol Hill. On Capitol Hill, there's a plot of foot to hand out amnesty to illegal aliens. Now for those of you who've been with me for some time, you've already heard me talk about this, this massive idiotic legislation. It's called the Dignidad Act. The Dign... I know, you're a Dignidad, what is Dignidad? Dignidad is Spanish for dignity, it's Spanish. They named the legislation Dignidad. Now again, we talked about this some time ago. I wanna say it was February of this year, we reviewed this with you. And this gigantic flaming pile of garbage is the brainchild of a Florida Republican congresswoman. You heard me correctly, called Maria Salazar. Maria Salazar. And she's been gathering, I don't know, how has this even happened? She's been gathering ahead of steam here with 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats in the house, all co-sponsoring a piece of legislation to give amnesty to illegal aliens and then scolding anyone who calls it amnesty. This week, the fact that this bill exists just got kind of a lot of attention thanks to a lefty ex-post from a guy called Brian Allen. He posted this, he said, breaking 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats just co-sponsored the Dignidad Act. The first serious bipartisan immigration bill in decades. It's not serious. F that noise, it's not serious. It's a scam, it's a sellout. What it actually does, says Brian, then he lies to you. No amnesty, no citizenship, those are lies by the way, right away. No handouts, that's a lie. A pathway to legal work status for long-term undocumented immigrants who meet strict requirements fully funded by restitution payments from immigrants themselves requiring zero taxpayer dollars. Mike Lawler, also Republicans, own words. This is not amnesty, it's accountability, it's fairness, it's dignity. It's a scam, it's a scam is what it is. And it's infuriating that we have to keep putting fires out on our own side. What is wrong with you people? What a bunch of sellouts. So Brandon Gill is a great congressman. He's proven himself to be great Republican congressman from Texas. He's producer Jim's congressman actually. And Brandon Gill said the following, the dignity act is mass amnesty and it would constitute a terrible betrayal of our voters. A terrible betrayal. Yeah, what did you vote for in 2024? Was it amnesty? I'm pretty sure it was mass deportations. It wasn't amnesty, it was the exact opposite of that. Brandon Gill correctly assessing, this would be a terrible betrayal of American voters. Lots of them, the majority of them, the popular vote in the United States of America. Maria Salazar is freaking out about it. She's mad that Brandon Gill called her out. Good, good, keep freaking out. I love that she freaked out, you know why? Because the freak out that she has on display right now is calling more attention to the betrayal that she's manufacturing. Listen to this woman. She types in all capital letters, puts a period between every word like a child. Read the bill before you open your mouth, she writes. Angry at Brandon. Calling the dignity act amnesty isn't just wrong, it's a deliberate distortion, it exposes just how little you know about the bill. This is enforcement first, zero tolerance for criminals, permanent border security, hard earned requirements to step forward and face the law so American workers are protected, not undercut. Amnesty is the chaos you've defended. What? Amnesty is the chaos Brandon Gill has defended? Millions in the shadows, no control, no accountability in a system that stopped working a long time ago. Brandon Gill supports enforcing the law, you colossal liar. Who is this woman? She's pushing amnesty and then accusing those of us who want to deport illegals of being for amnesty? This is projection, this is classic left wing projection, coming out of the mouth of a nominal Republican. You're for amnesty if you support the status quo. I don't support the status quo. I'm done with the status quo. I support the rule of law. Get the hell out of my country if you're here illegally. If you break my laws, you've gotta go. Consequence culture, that's what we call it. You need to have the consequences imposed upon you. Accusing me of supporting amnesty. It's laughable, that's psychotic as you push amnesty and then accuse everybody else of being for amnesty. Nice, no shortcuts, no giveaways, no blanket forgiveness. That's law and order, that's dignity, she says. So what you just heard was a series of lies. Let me just start with video of Maria Salazar though. I want you to hear directly out of her own lying mouth that the whole point of this operation is to give citizenship to illegal aliens. Here's Maria Salazar, where did she admit this? Huh, where was this? Oh, it was at the World Freaking Economic Forum in 2023. Watch Congresswoman Salazar, check it out. We give them dignity. At some point in the future, another legislator will write another law to give them pass citizenship. Right now, what we need to do is to buy peace for these people, allow them to stay, to continue working because they are needed. This is crazy. Is that the World Economic Forum? Josh? The real goal, sorry, the real goal of the Dignity Act is to keep the illegals here. The real goal of the Dignity Act is to keep the illegals here. So they'll eventually receive citizenship. Okay, so that's Salazar. That was her in an ABC interview. She did a local ABC interview. I've got the world economic forum for you. Overhaul of the immigration system because not only we need those hands, like the Congress, like us, a senator was saying, but we need to also give dignity to those people who are in the country. And those are the people that I represent. We're talking about 13, 15 million people who are, most of them Hispanics, I would say 85% who speak my language, look like me and sound like me, that are contributing with the economy of this country and they live in the shadows. So it's time to seal the border, like she said, put order, let's see who comes in and who doesn't, and then turn around and give dignity. That doesn't mean path to citizenship. That means to include them and make them dignified members of our community. All right, so amnesty. So she says, it's not amnesty. I don't mean amnesty. So she's running away from the word because she knows it's so freaking politically unpopular. But let me just tell you with certainty that what she's describing is amnesty. And you know who actually warned us about this in July of last year? That would be the late great Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk warned everybody about this particular piece of legislation advanced by Maria Salazar. And he said, there are a handful of Republicans in Congress who are pushing the so-called Dignity Act of 2025. The Dignity Dot Act, even as they describe it to you, they lie to you about the name of it. Which would shield illegals from deportation if they've been in the US since 2021. Here's the trick, said Charlie. We don't actually know when many or perhaps most illegals even entered the US. All they have to do is say the magic words and then they're allowed to stay. At best, their case would be bogged down in court for years. This is a ruse, do not fall for it. This will grind President Trump's mass deportations to a halt. This is worse than a soft to amnesty. This de facto ends the mass deportations that Americans just voted for. Additionally, when I went through the bill with you in February, I laid out a bunch of the details for you. And in the details of the bill, they include things like a path to quote permanent legal status for illegal aliens. Now, those of you who either are part of the immigration system, meaning you are here as a legal immigrant or you're familiar with the immigration system, you know what that means. Permanent legal status is green card, green card. A green card is a path to citizenship. Once you score a green card, you are on track if you so desire to become a United States citizen. That's how it works. Maria Salazar is handing out citizenship. It's amnesty. Anytime someone violates our laws and then is given some sort of get out of jail free card for that violation of the law where we mitigate the consequences to you, where we don't actually deport you, that's amnesty. So she'll try and dress this up, she'll scream, she'll type in all capital letters. It's not amnesty, it's not amnesty. It's amnesty. And this thing deserves to be strangled in the cradle. There's no way we could possibly advance an amnesty. And the American people are attuned to this. Now, there are a lot of big money forces that are pushing it though. If you're wondering like, what is this? Why are these guys supporting this? What made them do this? Check out the list. This is on Maria Salazar's website of the organizations that are backing this. It's so big, I can't even fit it on the whole screen. These are operations in the United States that are pushing this. And you'll recognize some of these. And a lot of them are basically just trying to exploit cheap foreign labor. There's the African American Farmers of California. What? Importing cheap foreign labor hurts black Americans. You psychos. American Bakers Association. There's the American Latino Coalition. The American Legion is on this list. What is the American Legion doing on this list? For amnesty. America's Veterans? By the way, anybody in chat, a member of the American Legion, did you know that? That the American Legion is on this list? That the American Legion is on this? Americans for Prosperity. Remember that organization? The Anti-Defamation League. What else is in here? The Center for American Progress, of course. This is the Clintons. This is, you know, that's about establishment Democrat as it gets. The Jewish Federation of North America, the Latin Chamber of Commerce, the Libre Initiative. They've always been for illegal aliens, you know. And the list goes on here. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is on this list. You see the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? Any surprise? U.S. Chamber of Commerce. So basically what you have is a crap ton of money being dedicated to passing an amnesty so that these operations can protect and exploit cheap foreign labor at the expense of American workers. So it doesn't help American workers. This sells you out. This screws you over. And that's why you just saw 20 Republicans get on board with this. 20. Because they're in on a corrupt deal. That's why their names are on that list. Fram, to see. And then they lie to you about it. Anyway, so keep your eyes on that and help me bury that, would you? Help me suffocate that particular thing? It deserves to die a very quick death. It should not be in any way a serious piece of legislation. And I'm glad a lot more people are becoming attuned to it now. Suddenly there's a critical massive attention on it. That's good. We need to destroy this thing. Definitely. All right, one more big thing happened for you yesterday. I want to share with you, which is the acting attorney general of the United States now officially, Todd Blanche, Pam Bondi, has completely left. So Todd Blanche is now the acting attorney general of the United States. He stepped out for a press conference yesterday and announced that the United States Department of Justice is not just taking fraud kind of seriously. They're taking it very seriously. Remember, Vice President JD Vance is in charge of fraud force at the White House. And they have a new assistant attorney general who is going after fraud all across the country. He's got jurisdiction over the whole country to prosecute these fraudsters. And yesterday, Todd Blanche stepped up to the microphone to announce that they've got over 8,000 active cases against fraudsters going as we speak all across the country. Here is attorney general Blanche yesterday cut for, watch this. Every day, the Department of Justice investigators and prosecutors work to punish those who commit fraud. For example, just this week and it's only Tuesday, a criminal defendant was sentenced and the department obtained two additional guilty pleas and matters totaling over half a billion dollars in healthcare and COVID fraud. If you think about that, just since yesterday, we had a guilty plea in a $160 million healthcare enrollment fraud scheme and a sentencing in a $100 million COVID-19 fraud. So much money. And a guilty plea in a $160 million healthcare fraud scheme as well. Each of these cases represents countless hours of dedication from the prosecutors and the federal agents and local law enforcement who worked them. The Department of Justice is holding criminals accountable for stealing over half a billion dollars from taxpayers. And across our US attorney's offices, all over this country, we currently have over 8,000 fraud matters underway. Unfortunately, as you've heard a lot about recently, because it's true, these cases represent a fraction of the fraud ripping off our country every day. Thanks to the leadership of President Trump, this department, working closely with the task force to eliminate fraud, is supercharging efforts to take down every fraudster and bring them to justice. 8,000 cases. Oh, I definitely voted for that. I definitely voted for that. That's what I wanted. And that's what we're getting. They're cracking down on fraudsters like crazy. And that's good news. I'm seeing like, you know, all these hospice fraudsters in Los Angeles, people stealing from the American taxpayer and living these lavish lifestyles, high on the hog, they're getting taken down right now, being arrested on camera. The Trump administration is telling the media, hey, show up with your cameras, CBS news crews there. It's great. More of that, please. More perp walks, more walks of shame. Do everything you can to crush fraud in this country. But then Todd Blanche also took some questions yesterday. And what made this different than a customary Justice Department press conferences, he took a lot of questions, actually. It was fascinating because the media engaged in this typical conspiracy theorizing yesterday. And I want to share with you, here's cut two. This is Todd Blanche talking about, responding to a question about weaponizing the Justice Department. Have you noticed that these lefty reporters, they'll invent this thing like, oh, why is Donald Trump weaponizing the Justice Department? Why is he trying to punish his political enemies? And listen to Todd Blanche, first of all, dunking on this reporter. And then giving a very revealing answer about the pursuit of justice. Watch. That is supposedly a, that when we talk about ending weaponization as if that's a bad thing for us to do. Okay, people in this room, okay, people in this room for four years, some of you, same people sat here with the last administration, when you saw a weaponization of this department, the likes of which had never been seen in history. And some of you are looking down now. And I get it, because you had a president who was indicted four times by this department. You had a president who, along with this department, had assistance. So this department helped two other local DAs go after the president. You had this department who stood idly by why states tried to keep President Trump off the ballot. Yep. Okay, that's what happened the past four years. And so when I'm asked questions, or when I see reporting about shock and awe at this supposed weaponization of this department, of this department of justice, it means nothing to me, because it's completely false. What we're doing, and what we've been doing for the past 14 months is changing this department. Is changing this department. We're no longer, people say, the president wants to go after his political enemies. No, the president has said time and time again that he wants justice. And if you look at what happened to him, his family, his administration, the agents that protected him, people that happened or just walked by him on a given day, they got subjected to massive investigations by this department. So I understand the question, and I understand the pretty constant role of the media that somehow this department is weaponizing itself, but it happens not to be true. We have tens of thousands of prosecutors all over this country putting bad guys in jail. That's something that wasn't happening like it should have been happening for the past four years. That's gonna happen tomorrow, and it's gonna happen in the coming days. It's gonna happen in the coming, how great is that? How great is that? So it's like weaponization, oh, shut up. Weaponization is what happened at this justice department. We're finally cleaning it up, we're pursuing justice. Josh, there was a moment, so one of the reporters asked in response, they were bewildered by the fact that he said that the justice department had produced four indictments against Donald Trump. Do you have that clip, Josh? Let's play this clip, let's just play it, let's see what it was. This is Todd Blanche talking, cut three. Let's watch this one. Thank you, Mr. Acting Attorney General. The President Trump has made no secret of the fact that he wants to see his perceived political enemies prosecuted, so now that you're in this position, how are you going to balance that relentless pressure with his administration's promise to end the weaponization of this department? Well, look, first of all, we have thousands of ongoing investigations and prosecutions going on in this country right now, and it is true that some of them involve men, women, and entities that the President in the past has had issues with and that believe that should be investigated. That is his right. Love that. And indeed, it is his duty to do that, meaning to lead this country. And so I do not view this as pressure. I do not view this as something that is going to keep me up at night except to make sure that we are investigating every case that we have to the fullest extent of the law and using all the resources we can. I love that. All right, so Todd Blanche is absolutely crushing it. And the reporters in that room, they don't even know what to do with it. They're just so accustomed to telling lies about the way the President operates. It's unreal. And finally, I've got this clip for you. I want to play for you, cut one. This is Todd Blanche accusing one of the reporters of just being a liar there as he's making a very strong case for why he might be the right guy to stay in the job full-time. Watch. What if the White House or somebody in the White House says we want you to investigate this state or this programming and how do you handle that? I mean, historically, as you know, since Watergate, there's been a kind of a firewall, if you will, on criminal investigations between the White House and the Justice Department. I mean, that is the most false statement I've ever heard in my life. There is always communication between a President and his priorities and what the Department of Justice should be focused on and not focused on. That is not a new thing in this administration, although I know it sounds fun to say that it is. So as far as whether we would take a referral from the White House or take a referral from you even, yes. I mean, yes, if somebody knows about fraud, please tell us. And so if the President of our United States says, I have heard that there is ongoing fraud in Minneapolis, Minnesota, like any President before him, I hope that the Attorney General would absolutely say, yes, we'll investigate that. All right, so we learned a lot actually from this. One, we basically got, without him outright saying it, like full-blown confirmation that they do have that grand jury case going on in South Florida. He was talking about how the people who've broken the law and abused their power are being subjected to investigations right now, which could lead to indictments. That's basically confirmation that the grand conspiracy case down in South Florida is hot on their trail. James Comey, John Brennan, these guys receiving subpoenas, they're very busy dealing with the legal ramifications of those consequences. That's good news for the rest of us. The other piece here is I just want to lean into what he said a moment ago. I've been saying this for many years, that of course the President directs the Department of Justice. It's the Constitution of the United States. He's in charge of it. If he tells them, drop everything and go after drug dealers, they drop everything and they go after drug dealers. That's the way it's supposed to work. So if the President says, go after anybody who broke the law and abused their power in government, that's the way it's supposed to work. They do that. They do that. That's not some mystery or some weird extra constitutional thing or out of control or whatever. No, it's the President's job to direct the executive branch to fulfill the will of the American people. That's what he was elected on. So it's totally normal. And I'm glad to hear Todd Blanche just say it. Just say it. And it's funny because it's so unimpeachably true that even the worst, most hysterical, frothing at the mouth left-wing critics don't even really know how to handle it. Like for instance, yesterday on Ms. Now, that guy, Mark Elias, you know him, that crazy Democrat election lawyer, he reacted to that moment on Ms. Now. And he was like, wow, this guy is really good at lying. In other words, you can't stop the talking point he just used because it was true. Watch Mark Elias yesterday freaking out. I think what he's actually doing is trying to say that there's never been a line. I think in some respects, Todd Blanche is acknowledging that they are, or let's put it this way, he is at least more acknowledging it than Pam Bondi did, that this line doesn't exist. And I would add to your list of names. I mean, I think you cannot explain the prosecution of La Monaca MacGyver in New Jersey as anything other than the weaponization of government against political funds. She's an assaultant ICE officer. She's a member of Congress who's been indicted for essentially doing oversight of ICE facilities. Oversight. At a time when the Trump administration didn't want oversight of ICE facilities. It was more of a right cross. You could go down the list. You could look at the Cassidy Hutchinson story that you played a clip on. You know, the idea that they would be looking at Cassidy Hutchinson only again because it's a political opponent. Who lied to Congress. So I said that Todd Blanche is an unusually good liar and that is a problem because as you say, he is lying when he is saying that this has always gone on. He's intimidated. That's so funny. So Mark Elias is intimidated by Todd Blanche. He's really worried about Todd Blanche because he knows Todd Blanche is telling the truth. And nothing is more effective than telling the truth. Good to see him doing that. We've got a lot more to get to today. I've got a very busy day ahead. I'll be with the great Dan Bongino and his program today coming up in the 10 o'clock hour right here on rumble rumble.com slash Bongino. I've got the big national radio show today. We've got that coming up. That's the Vin show. You can get your local listings at thevinshow.com. You can watch me live on rumble from one to three Eastern time. It starts at noon, but the rumble cast starts at one o'clock Eastern time. You can watch me rumble.com slash Vince. And then Haley Caronea is on a noon Eastern right here live on rumble. Haley's incredible. She's incredible. In fact, well, first of all, to get to her rumble.com slash Haley, Haley with two Ys. Why? Because she is incredible. In fact, a programming note for you. So this is my daughter's spring break week. So I'm going to conclude this week by taking some time off with her. We're doing that. Tomorrow on this program, the great Haley Caronea is filling in for me. I'm so grateful for that. She didn't have to do that, but she is doing that. So she'll be here to give you all the updates on all of the chaos going on in the world. I guarantee you there's going to be breaking news for her to talk about with you. And then on Friday, I'll have a conversation with the great Jim Verdi, producer Jim. We'll get to hear from him and get producer Jim's take on the world. The world according to Jim, who's very busy, by the way, dealing with March Sadness right now, the single dumbest member of Congress. Have you voted yet? It's almost over. March Sadness is almost done. It's a hot contest. Vote on the dumbest member of Congress right now on producer Jim's ex account. Go find that. And yeah, that's everything I've got to tell you today. It's always so great to be with you. You're the best audience anywhere. Thank you for being here with me today. I will chat with you very soon, especially if you're watching Dan Bongino's show coming up at 10. Then I'll talk to you very soon. More ahead. See you then.