It’s Time For America To Focus On Its Own Problems

The way I have always prepared for my podcast is by writing my opening monologue and my closing monologue, the “Daily Cancellation.” I like doing it this way because it allows me to deliver commentary that is, I hope anyway, more thought out and interesting than what you get on the average podcast. The downside is that, first of all, it’s way more work and effort to do it this way. Second, it presents practical complications during the rare moments when major news events are breaking and developing by the minute. So, by the time I finish writing my monologue, the situation I’m writing about may have already changed.

We are in one of those rare moments right now. My plan today was to bring the focus back to the homefront, to problems that we face in our own country. And I will still do that. But I want to begin by providing an update on the situation in the Middle East. Unfortunately that situation is rapidly developing, changing, deteriorating, then improving, then deteriorating again then improving again. So, I’ll try my best to get us all up to speed, with the understanding that everything I cover in the first half of this monologue might be out of date by the time you read it. Not much I can do about that.

Anyway, barring an order from a federal district court judge ordering the president to resume bombing Iran (which is a lot more plausible than it should be), we now have a much clearer situation about the conflict in the Middle East than we did just 24 hours ago. Although it’s not perfectly clear, as we’ll see.

Last night, as you’ve heard, Iran, Israel and the United States agreed to what Donald Trump called a “complete and total ceasefire.” The agreement came just hours after Iran launched a small number of missiles towards a U.S. airbase in Qatar.

Here’s footage of what those missiles looked like from the ground. The vast majority of these missiles were intercepted in mid-air, and none of them caused any damage or casualties. And that wasn’t an accident. Through diplomatic channels, Iran informed both the United States and Qatar of its plan to launch the missiles ahead of time. Yes, Iran informed us that they were going to fire the missiles at us, before they did so. And then they immediately agreed to stop launching missiles entirely.

The whole display was choreographed. The only conclusion you can draw here is that Iran knows it’s in a very weak position. Therefore, they fired off a few missiles to “get it out of their system,” as Trump put it — to put on a tough face for domestic consumption — and then backed down.

Regardless of what your position was 24 hours ago, this would obviously be a very favorable conclusion to America’s involvement in this conflict. If no American lives are lost, and we are not pulled into another Middle Eastern quagmire, that is clearly something to celebrate. At this point, no politician or commentator should have any difficulty admitting that fact. And yet, strangely enough, not everyone was happy yesterday. Indeed some of the biggest cheerleaders of military intervention in Iran — the people who were the loudest voices urging Donald Trump to bomb those nuclear facilities — don’t seem to be particularly happy at the moment. You’d think they’d be overjoyed that their position ultimately prevailed, and that the United States has just taken the historic step of bombing Iran’s nuclear program.

WATCH: The Matt Walsh Show

But that’s not the case, as it turns out. To be sure, some politicians, like Ted Cruz, seem thrilled by what’s transpired. They got exactly what they asked for, and now they’re praising the Trump administration as you’d expect. But then you have senators like Lindsey Graham, who just took to the floor of the Senate to demand regime change in Iran. He made it very clear that a cease-fire isn’t acceptable, nor is military action that eliminates Iran’s nuclear capability. That was his previous goal, supposedly, but it’s not what he wants anymore. To that end, Lindsey Graham began his speech by comparing Iran’s leadership to Nazis. Because of course that is the only analogy that anyone in public life is capable of. There’s only one other thing that has happened in history before this current moment, and that’s World War 2. Which is why everything is like World War 2. 

Then he called on Israel to overthrow the government because the Iranians aren’t “normal.” Watch:

He says, “To our friends in Israel, finish the job. Do what you have to do to bring about regime change.”

That’s coming from a U.S. senator who’s supposed to represent the interests of South Carolina, a state that’s around 6,000 miles away from Israel. He’s not happy that bombers just flew all the way from Missouri to take out these nuclear sites in Iran. Instead, without missing a beat, he wants more upheaval and uncertainty. Forget a cease-fire. He wants more shooting, immediately. And by the way, if that happens, there are no guarantees that Iran’s going to tip us off to their next rocket barrage. It’s very possible American soldiers will die. What happens then? You know the answer. There will be a much wider war, at which point Lindsey Graham will demand a full-scale invasion.

Mark Levin has adopted a similar position. Here’s what he wrote, following the news that Iran had effectively chosen not to respond to our attack on their nuclear facilities.

“The Iranian Nazi regime is desperately trying to hold on to power with no effective options. Will the regime be provided an ‘off ramp’ without surrendering unconditionally?  In other words, will the regime be given a lifeline, and survive to terrorize and murder, build more ballistic missiles, and develop nukes and intercontinental missiles in the future? That would be a disastrous outcome after all of this.”

Reading all of this, the only appropriate response is to demonstrate a characteristic that Mark Levin is apparently incapable of demonstrating. You have to show some humility, and recognize what you know, and what you don’t know. We don’t know whether, and how quickly, Iran’s current regime will be able to develop nukes and intercontinental missiles. They’ve obviously just suffered a massive setback to their nuclear program, by all accounts. And we also don’t know what a new government would do, if we somehow orchestrated a “regime change,” whatever that means. If we sponsor an effort to overthrow Iran’s government, then we have absolutely no idea what would happen next. But there’s a very real possibility that the outcome would be catastrophic. And I say that because US-led regime changes have been catastrophic every other time they’ve been tried. But so far, Trump has managed to avert catastrophe for the U.S. in the Middle East. And again, obviously, that is worth celebrating.

Although — and here’s where we come to the latest updates, as of this moment — this episode isn’t quite over. Mere hours after the ceasefire was seemingly settled, Iran and Israel began accusing each other of violating it. The initial ceasefire lasted all of 5 or 6 hours, if that, before the two parties were at each other’s throats again.

This morning, President Trump was obviously fed up with the whole thing. And especially frustrated with Israel. Here’s what he said: 

Trump also said that Iran and Israel, “have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f— they’re doing.” He followed that up with a post on Truth Social, demanding that Israel send its planes home and not drop any more bombs. A follow up post reported that Israel was returning the planes and that the plane they sent to Iran would only do a “friendly plane wave” and then return. I don’t know what a plane wave is, or why Israel would be doing that, but that’s what Trump said.

As of this exact moment, a measure of clam seems to have been restored. Again. And most importantly, still no American lives have been lost in the chaos. We’ll see how things stand an hour or day from now. No matter what, one thing we know is that no ceasefire will hold forever in the Middle East. Across the region there are factions that have been fighting for years, decades — arguably centuries, in some cases. And they will continue to fight no matter what we do.

President Trump can definitely handle this stuff better than most presidents. In fact he handles it better than any other president in my lifetime. But even so, there’s only so much an American president can do when he’s dealing with ancient blood feuds 10 thousand miles away. He cannot fundamentally solve the problem. Not because of a deficiency on his part, but because of a deficiency of human nature, and because of the particular conditions in the Middle East. And because there are lots of other forces at work who want conflict over there. And when people want conflict, they get it. One way or another. At one point or another. In one form or another.

That’s why I want the U.S. to leave the circus behind. Back out of it completely and focus on our own problems. You can call that simplistic or “isolationist” if you want. I really don’t care. I call it rational. I call it learning the lessons of history, including recent history. Most of all, I call it — we call it — America first. Our country is in a state of existential crisis on multiple fronts internally. We don’t have the time, resources, manpower, will, or ability to fix problems for other countries right now. We need to focus on ourselves and let them handle their own disputes.

I made this point yesterday — I make this point all the time, going back to the very beginning of my career. When I said this yesterday on X, someone responded — in a Tweet that got hundreds of likes — and said that we need to do a regime change in Iran if we “believe in shaping a better world.” I responded that it is not America’s job to shape a better world. Lots of commenters seem to be scandalized by that assertion. They can’t believe that I’m opposed to a better world. 

Well, let me break this down for them as slowly and plainly as I can.

Yes, I’d like for the world to be better. That would be great. I’m not convinced that US-led regime changes actually have made the world better — ever, like at all — but sure, a better world sounds great to me. But the burden of improving the entire world and bringing peace and happiness to everyone who lives on the globe does not fall on the United States of America. That is not our job. And it is insane that I even have to explain this.

The principal job of our leaders, and our people, our citizens, is to make this country better. It is to see to the prosperity, health, safety, and well being of our own nation and our own people. And if we do that, guess what? The world will be a better place, too. You want to help the world? Put America first. More importantly, you want to help your own family, your community, your people, your culture? Put America first. Always.

Now, onto the practical steps we could take. There are a lot of issues we could address here — issues that directly impact the lives of American citizens. The Trump administration has already secured the southern border, which is one of the most important steps towards restoring our national sovereignty and protecting Americans from foreign criminals. But that still doesn’t address the millions of illegal aliens who have already entered the United States. Securing the border is critically important, of course. But the problem is that the next Democrat administration can undo those efforts in 5 seconds. They cannot, however, so easily reverse mass deportations. Which is why the mass deportations must commence.

The latest estimates show that only around 55,000 illegal aliens are currently in ICE detention. Around 30% of them have criminal convictions, and another 26% have pending criminal charges. Additionally, news reports suggest that roughly 15,000 illegal aliens are being deported every month on average, which would put us around 180,000 on the year if that pace holds. These are not anywhere near the numbers we need to see, if we want to make a dent in the massive number of illegal aliens who currently live in this country. That number is at least 11 million, although the actual figure is definitely much, much higher, because they’ve been giving us that 11 million figure for more than a decade.

So let’s do some back-of-the-envelope math here. If we keep deporting illegal aliens at the current pace, after four years, we’ll have deported less than 10% of the illegal alien population in this country — using the most optimistic estimate imaginable. In reality, it’s more like 5% or maybe even 1%, or less. That is not sufficient, to put it mildly. And, unlike generational conflicts in the Middle East, this is something we can start addressing immediately, if we choose to do so.

Here’s one idea of how we can get started. In Los Angeles, local media outlets are openly advertising the services of fake nonprofits and “charities” that are aiding and abetting illegal aliens in this country. This is a story that every conservative should be talking about. It has far more relevance to our daily lives than any rocket launch half a world away. Watch:

Yes, this guy is going around in a van and picking up random illegal alien street vendors. He’s yelling and luring them into his unmarked white van with wads of cash — enough to buy all of their products, and pay their rent for a month. There’s nothing sketchy or crazy about this at all, we’re told. This is supposedly life in Trump’s America, even though, as we just discussed, barely anyone is getting deported. And those who are getting deported, in the majority of cases, have criminal records.

Put all of that aside for a second. Imagine if, instead of helping illegal aliens, he was driving around in his van and offering to pay money to shelter, say, cop killers or armed robbers who just escaped from prison. Pick any crime, and then imagine that this guy is going around and helping the criminals evade the authorities. In those cases, the media would presumably have no problem calling this guy what he is. He’s acting a lot like a criminal himself. Certainly, his fake “charity” or NGO or whatever should be shut down immediately. Any tax-deductible donations or expenses he’s recording, as part of any plot to help criminals evade accountability, are obviously fraudulent. There should be raids immediately, to determine where his funding is coming from, and also to shut down the whole operation.

Until that happens — until people like this are held accountable, for openly defying the law on the local news — then we shouldn’t tolerate another word from any politician about getting the United States more involved in the war in the Middle East.

This should be the red line. There’s a massive web of NGOs and nonprofits that do exactly what this guy is doing, although they’re a bit more subtle about it. They all need to be shut down. And then, for its part, the administration needs to drastically step up deportations, because we’re not doing nearly enough on that front.

That’s what Donald Trump ran on. That’s why he won every swing state. No one in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania voted for Donald Trump because of the things he would do for a foreign country. They voted for him because of what he would do for this country, and its own people. They voted for him because he said he would secure the border and punish open lawlessness. The first part of that promise has been fulfilled. Now it’s time to remove the criminals who are already here, as well as the people who are facilitating them. If we manage to achieve that, then we’ll have a country ten years from now. And nothing — not even the fate of various countries in the Middle East — is more important than that.