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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to get us all up to speed, with the understanding that everything I cover in the first half of this monologue might be out of date by the time you read it.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.

The House Judiciary Committee has launched an investigation into a far-left organization to see if it used federal funds to organize anti-ICE unrest in Los Angeles. The committee announced its investigation into the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), a far-left organization. A Daily Wire investigation last year revealed that CHIRLA had received federal funding under the Biden-Harris administration as it worked to “dismantle the U.S. immigration enforcement system” and pushed for mass illegal alien amnesty. The House Judiciary Committee explained that it is concerned “that CHIRLA may be using federal funds to support violent criminal activity that impedes the enforcement of federal immigration law.” The federal funds awarded to the far-left organization under the Biden-Harris administration were earmarked for “citizenship instruction and naturalization services” and “innovations in citizenship education.” The letter requests that CHIRLA produce “all documents and communications” pertaining to the federal funds it received and specific information detailing how those funds were spent. The organization is also being asked to turn over communications and documents “referring or relating to protests against ICE, DHS, Customs and Border Protection, enforcement of immigration laws, or the Trump Administration’s immigration policies.” The House Judiciary Committee gave CHIRLA a deadline of July 8th to comply with its requests. A spokesman for CHIRLA said that the organization has not been involved in coordinating protests in Los Angeles, instead stating that the group “organized a press event” to speak out against the ICE raids and had “been sending legal observers to immigration courts and detention centers.” “We have not participated, coordinated, or been part of the protests being registered in Los Angeles other than the press conference and rally,” the CHIRLA representative said. While the House Judiciary Committee works to ascertain the extent of the organization’s involvement in the protests and unrest in Los Angeles, other leftwing groups have directly fueled the protest efforts, The Daily Wire previously revealed. Left-wing activists in Los Angeles raised money to purchase and distribute helmets, respirators, and other items to be used by those at the “front lines” of the unrest as they faced off against police officers. A local branch of the Democratic Party even distributed the addresses of hotels that were housing ICE agents and organized protests at the businesses, demanding that they refuse to provide the federal law enforcement agents with rooms.

Bernie Sanders wants to solve AI with socialism — but he doesn’t know how humans will find meaning in his socialist paradise. The 83-year-old senior senator from Vermont recently took time off of his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour to appear on “The Joe Rogan Experience.” During the almost two-hour episode, Rogan asked Sanders how humans will find meaning if artificial intelligence takes jobs and the government provides for everyone’s needs. “Andrew Yang was talking about this giant epidemic of automation in this country and the solution being universal basic income, but that’s not the solution for meaning,” Rogan said. “And how do we convince all of these people that they have to not just take this money from the government, but also take action to give themselves meaning in their lives?” Sanders tried to reframe the question as “a revolution in human experience.” “So throughout history, people have worked so hard just to stay alive, right?” Sanders said. “If you don’t need to do work, right, because we’re wealthy enough, how do you find meaning in your life?” Sanders called it a “trillion-dollar question” and said dependence on AI is not the answer. “All I would say at this moment is the answer is not to fall in love with your AI creature out there,” Sanders said. Rogan wasn’t satisfied. “Yeah, don’t do that,” Rogan said. “But also, how do you find meaning? How do you — if all you’re doing is just getting a check, and you can just stay at home and stare at the TV, and the money keeps coming, and then you eat processed food all day, and it’s all subsidized, what is life?” Sanders said the immediate solution is to take care of workers who lost jobs to AI. “I think you tell those workers, you’re going to have health care as a human right, you’re going to have education as a human right, you’re going to have a decent income as a human right, and we’re going to lower — substantially lower — the work week,” Sanders said. “What happens later, when even more work is eliminated, and what the purpose of human life becomes, that is a very profound question.” “What do you think happens?” Rogan asked. “It’s hard to imagine,” Sanders said. “Then the answer will be that we are going to have to find different meaning in life. We have to find it in ourselves in ways that you don’t know and I don’t know, because we’re not there yet.” Sanders said he doesn’t know how far out the problem is. “But I think human beings are capable of replacing work with other emotionally satisfying things,” Sanders said. “Yeah, I think we can do it.” Rogan said the problem would be providing meaning for millions of people. “What do you do to all those people to give them some sort of a sense of meaning?” Rogan asked. “You’re essentially redefining life for them.” “I don’t have the answer to that question,” Sanders admitted again. “That’s the problem. I don’t think anybody does.” Despite not having an answer, the senator still managed to bring the issue back to taxing the rich. “The people who own that technology and the corporations who utilize that [AI] technology are becoming phenomenally richer,” Sanders said. “And that is the issue. Which gets back to things like tax reform, like making sure that in America, we do not have the massive levels of income and wealth inequality that we currently have.”

There was a bit of a têe-à-tête between Israel, Iran, and the United States that broke out on Tuesday morning. Here’s what happened. Just before the ceasefire went into place, Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles into Israel. One of those ballistic missiles struck an apartment building in Beersheba (Be’er Sheva), which is in the south of Israel. At least seven people were murdered, 86 more people wounded, because this is what Iran does: target civilians, including women and children. Conversely, Israel, just before the ceasefire, took out a bunch of IRGC leaders at their headquarters. Then the time for the ceasefire came. Israel stopped; Iran did not. Iran instead sent a couple of missiles into northern Israel after the ceasefire, because this is what they always do. It’s not a shock; when Israel essentially wiped out Hezbollah in southern Lebanon back in October of 2024, and a ceasefire was declared, Hezbollah attempted a few actions violating the ceasefire just to see if they could get away with it. So that is what Iran did. And Israel prepared to fire back. President Trump then went on Truth Social, writing:   And then he had a rather heated exchange with a reporter talking about how upset he was that Israel and Iran were still firing at each other, essentially. He said: They (Iran) violated it, but Israel violated it too. As soon as we made the deal, they came out and they dropped a load of bombs. The likes of which I’ve never seen before, the biggest load that we’ve seen. I’m not happy with Israel. You know, when I say, “Okay, now you have 12 hours,” you don’t go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. So I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either, but I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning because of one rocket that didn’t land that was shot, perhaps by mistake, that didn’t land. I’m not happy about that. You know what we have? We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing. You understand that? Okay. Then President Trump walked away. There are a lot of people on every side who got very upset with President Trump about this. I am not, and the reason I am not is because I think that he’s attempting to enforce the ceasefire: end of story. That’s what this is. The president is saying, “Everybody, it’s weapons down. It’s weapons down.” WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show In fact, according to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s office, this is actually how it ended up materializing: The ceasefire was set to begin at 07:00 this morning. At 03:00, Israel forcefully attacked in the heart of Tehran, struck regime targets and eliminated hundreds of Basij and Iranian security forces personnel. Shortly before the ceasefire took effect, Iran launched a barrage of missiles, one of which took the lives of four of our Israeli civilians in Be’er Sheva. The ceasefire took effect at 07:00. At 07:06, Iran launched one missile at Israeli territory, and two additional missiles at 10:25. These missiles were either intercepted or fell in open areas, causing neither casualties nor damage. In response to Iran’s violations, the Air Force destroyed a radar installation near Tehran. Pursuant to the conversation between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel has refrained from additional attacks. In the conversation, President Trump expressed his great appreciation for Israel, which achieved all of its objectives in this war, as well as his confidence in the stability of the ceasefire. President Trump was simply saying to all parties, “Stop it now. We’re done.” By the way, I don’t think it’s bad for Israel that President Trump is seen controlling the issue, because what that says to Iran is that if it were not for President Trump telling the Israelis to stop, those bombs would still be falling on your head. So cut that crap out right now. That is the way I think President Trump meant for it to be read. And I think that’s the way that it will be read by Iran. In fact, President Trump then came out within a couple of hours and put it on Truth Social: “IRAN WILL NEVER REBUILD THEIR NUCLEAR FACILITIES.” That came despite the fact that Tehran is openly vowing to restore its nuclear facilities. According to Iran’s nuclear chief, Mohammad Eslami, “The plan is to prevent interruptions in the process of production and services. Iran is assessing its damage to the nuclear industry following Israel’s intensive 12 Days campaign against it.” He also said that “arrangements are going to be made for its restoration.” If President Trump identifies Iran rebuilding its nuclear facilities, he’s going to do something. And by the way, Israel will do something. They’re not going to sit idly by while Iran rebuilds any sort of nuclear capacity. Here’s the bottom line: President Trump handled this situation better than any president of my lifetime. If you had told me at the beginning of this war that Israel would be able to do what it has done, that America, with effectively one B-2 sortie, would have been able to cripple Iran’s major nuclear facility at Fordow and also finish off Natanz and Esfahan in Iran — which, by the way, is what I suggested from the beginning of the war; that one B-2 flight is basically all that America would be required to do, and that would be it and then we’d get to the end of the war — I would have been stunned. But it became true because President Trump lives in the world of reality. I can’t say this enough. He lives in the world of reality. President Trump was never, ever going to get us into a nation-building project in Iran. For those who thought he would, have you met President Trump? Have you watched him for the last ten years? What unbelievable lack of faith it showed in President Trump for people to suggest that Trump, of all people, was going to get us into World War III on a nation-building exercise in the Middle East. Were they out of their damned minds?