Senator Ben Sasse explains what happened with the Iran compromise

The Senate saw a rare compromise this week when Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a bill to give Congress 52 days to weigh in and review the bill. Glenn couldn't tell if this meant the Senate simply surrendered their power, or if it is a step in the right direction. Senator Ben Sasse joined the radio program Thursday to discuss the compromise and what continued negotiations with Iran could mean for the United States.

Below is a rush transcript of this segment

GLENN: So we have Ben Sasse on with us. We wanted to get somebody on that we really trusted and we wanted to talk a little about this -- this rare comprise on Iran. And Iran is changing all of the -- changing all of the parameters of this deal that we supposedly had. And the -- the Senate made a rare comprise. And we wanted to see if this works in our favor or not. As I read last night, it seems like the Senate once again surrendered their power. And Stu said the exact opposite. So we thought we would get Ben Sasse's read. Hello, Ben, how are you?

BEN: Glenn, good to be with you. Can I pretend I'm a politician and split the difference?

GLENN: No.

PAT: First of all, Ben, we should ask because you've been there two months now. Have you turned yet? Like "The Walking Dead". Have you turned? Are you a Senate walker now?

BEN: No. I'm still not a politician.

GLENN: Good. Glad to hear it.

BEN: Yeah. Thanks for having me on.

PAT: So you would say this is in the middle then, or do you like it?

BEN: Let's talk about it like this. The macro on having a nuclear Iran is a horrible idea. And for 36 years, both Republicans and Democrats in this country all agreed to that. And the Obama administration has pivoted from the historic goal of preventing a nuclear Iran to trying to manage the arrival of nuclear proliferation across the Middle East. So it's dreadful what's happening at the big picture level.

This specific bill that was passed out of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously, is a small, small deal. But it's a small step in the right direction. But it's not big enough to change the course of how big the problems are. But this Senate comprise is more good than bad, but it's small.

GLENN: Okay.

STU: Because it just gives us a chance to essentially veto this deal.

GLENN: Okay. But I thought the Senate has that right. You have the right.

BEN: No. Well, if it were being submitted by the Obama administration as if we had three separate, but equal branches of government that check and balance one another in a constitutional system -- they've got a pen, and they've got a phone, and executive unilateralism means to the Obama administration that they can just make up anything that they want. So they're trying to strike this deal with Iran, going completely around the Congress and going straight to the UN.

And so a treaty would have to be submitted to us. They've never framed this as a treaty, even though it's far more important than many things that go by treaty. For example, the last 23 civilian nuclear power agreements around the world -- I think the number is 23 -- have been submitted to the Senate for approval, under treaty-like structures.

In this case, they were just going to ignore the Congress. So Corker has been trying to do -- Bob Corker, the senator from Tennessee is the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee -- he's been trying to get a piece of legislation passed called the Congressional Review Act, which at least gives us the ability to express satisfaction or dissatisfaction with what the Obama administration is trying to cook as a truly bad deal.

But here's why it is still a step in the right direction, though it's tiny. It will at least allow us to get access to knowledge for the American people of what's in the deal. The Obama administration has been trying to cut a deal with Tehran, where they and Tehran have rival talking points out in the world. And the people of the United States don't even know what's in it. The people of America have a right to know what's in this deal. It's going to be bad. But we need to know what's in there. The way you get some transparency into it is by the Congress knowing.

GLENN: So here's how I read this, Ben, why are we negotiating with the president in the first place? Why aren't you guys just going and saying, you can't do this? You can't do this without us?

BEN: Well, because the administration largely owns the media and they go out and tell a story that the United States has struck a deal. They want to use this as the occasion to wave all sanctions. How is that possible? That's possible because there was a flaw in some legislation that was passed many years ago in the way that the sanctions are being imposed on Iran.

Let's be clear about who Iran is. They're the world's largest state sponsor of terror. They're funding Shia militias among at least five of their neighbors, trying to destabilize regimes. They're horrible actors. But there is one thing worse than Iran right now. And that is the short-term threat of Sunni jihadist terrorists that are building non-state organizations like ISIS or ISIL. So it's essentially al-Qaeda rebranded.

So in the middle of the frenzy of ISIL capturing most of eastern Syria and lots of northwestern Iraq, many people in the Middle East are looking for some form of stability. When the Shia militias come in, they're sometimes a less bad option than the non-state actors. The Iranians are under huge sanctions. That's a good thing. They have about $130 billion of offshore revenues right now, and almost 90 percent of those funds are frozen. But the Russians, in particular, would like to end those sanction regimes because their economy is failing. And they would like to sell armaments to Iran. So in the midst of this, instead of leading, the Obama administration -- instead of leading and ratcheting up of sanctions, the Obama administration is trying to lead the capitulation to Tehranian HEP demands.

STU: And this is more to than just being able to review this deal, Ben. This is also -- if I'm understanding it correctly. You give them a month to look at the deal and review it. They also have a chance to block Obama from removing the sanctions, which is fundamental to the deal, and Iran won't agree to it without that. So in effect, you have with this bill veto on the Iranian deal, don't you?

BEN: So a couple of things. Glenn's point. You and I have been on the same side of this. Now I hate to go against you because you're my partner in this. So we don't want Glenn to ever be right.

STU: Of course.

BEN: Here's what's being turned on its head. Under the constitutional arrangement, the president is supposed to negotiate the best deal you can for treaties. Then you submit it to the Senate. It it needs a two-thirds vote. Under this new world, you would essentially have a resolution of approval or disapproval. And given the Senate rules, it would take about 60 votes to say, no, we think this is terrible.

But well before we get to that point, because we can get lost here in process in a hurry, we would at least be able to, as representatives of the people, be able to get access to knowledge of what's in this deal.

The Obama administration has been claiming this is verifiable. As if the IAEA has typically been right in the past, when they've tried to dig in and find out things like the drift to a nuclear North Korea. We had a 36-year consensus in this country that we should never have a nuclear Iran. And the president continually posits this false choice between, we have to accept whatever the worst deal is that the Iranians will let us have, or we have to go to a immediate war. That's nonsense. When you talk to Nebraskans, they know it's nonsense. And your listeners know it's nonsense. There's a third choice, which you negotiate from a position of strength, where the Iranians know we mean business and we don't intend to allow a nuclear Iran. And our allies in the region don't want a nuclear Iran. And lo and behold, we'd be having a totally different discussion than the way we negotiate from this posture of weakness.

PAT: Isn't it possible, though, Ben that this whole process is moot anyway because the Iranians are changing the deal radically. Kerry was asked, what happened if they change the deal after you announced that the framework has been agreed upon, and he just said, well, that's not going to happen. And it already has. It's already happened. And so, in fact, they've cut the time in half from ten years to five.

STU: They want 4,000 extra centrifuges.

BEN: Right.

PAT: So the deal should be off anyway. Shouldn't it?

BEN: It should. So let's just name two or three of those variables you named. There are about six or seven things that are going wrong in the Kerry/Obama negotiation with the Iranians. But let's take your centrifuges point. The right number of centrifuges for Iran to have is zero. There should be no uranium enrichment in the world's largest state sponsor of terror. Your listeners should be asking themselves, these people have been funding Shia militias across the Middle East and North Africa that have intentionally tried to target US troops. Why would we believe that when they have access to nuclear material that they wouldn't ultimately also share it with terror organizations? So the right number of centrifuges is zero. We know they have around 19,000. The Obama administration said at the beginning that they were going to negotiate to get them down to about 1,000. They've now pivoted to something more like 6,000. The right number should be zero.

You can make the same argument about the way any time anyplace inspections should work. The Iranians want to set up a regime of cat and mouse, like what was the case with Saddam Hussein in 2003, and the Kerry response to this is, well, we would have a snapback, that if they ever didn't keep their commitments under this agreement, all of the sanctions will snap back into place.

Well, a couple of problems with that. First is, they have $130 billion offshore right now. And if they get sanctions relief, they'll get access to most of that $130 billion. They've been spending a lot of their money to fund terrorist operations, beyond their borders. What do you think they'll spend the new $130 billion on? And number two, if these sanction regimes were ever going to snap back into place, you'd need groups like the Russians and the French and the Chinese to all cooperate with that. And it would be a bureaucratic, litigated process. You would know we're in a bad place in a negotiation right now when the French are trying to hold out for harder requirements in the US.

PAT: That's for sure.

GLENN: Senator, we appreciate your time. We know you're on a busy schedule. I would like to ask you to look into this Judicial Watch report about ISIS being on our border. There's conflicting reports on it. I happen to believe the Judicial Watch people that we have some serious issues going on our border with ISIS on both sides of our border. If you could, when you find out details, report back to us. We'd like to know if it's real or not.

BEN: Thanks, I spend a lot time in a classified setting. We're trying to learn about some of these issues. I would love to report back to you. So thanks for having me on.

GLENN: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Ben Sasse from Nebraska. Back in just a second.

The great switch: Gates trades climate control for digital dominion

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The Big Tech billionaire once said humanity must change or perish. Now he claims we’ll survive — just as elites prepare total surveillance.

For decades, Americans have been told that climate change is an imminent apocalypse — the existential threat that justifies every intrusion into our lives, from banning gas stoves to rationing energy to tracking personal “carbon scores.”

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates helped lead that charge. He warned repeatedly that the “climate disaster” would be the greatest crisis humanity would ever face. He invested billions in green technology and demanded the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050 “to avoid catastrophe.”

The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch.

Now, suddenly, he wants everyone to relax: Climate change “will not lead to humanity’s demise” after all.

Gates was making less of a scientific statement and more of a strategic pivot. When elites retire a crisis, it’s never because the threat is gone — it’s because a better one has replaced it. And something else has indeed arrived — something the ruling class finds more useful than fear of the weather.The same day Gates downshifted the doomsday rhetoric, Amazon announced it would pay warehouse workers $30 an hour — while laying off 30,000 people because artificial intelligence will soon do their jobs.

Climate panic was the warm-up. AI control is the main event.

The new currency of power

The world once revolved around oil and gas. Today, it revolves around the electricity demanded by server farms, the chips that power machine learning, and the data that can be used to manipulate or silence entire populations. The global contest is no longer over barrels and pipelines — it is over who gets to flip the digital switch. Whoever controls energy now controls information. And whoever controls information controls civilization.

Climate alarmism gave elites a pretext to centralize power over energy. Artificial intelligence gives them a mechanism to centralize power over people. The future battles will not be about carbon — they will be about control.

Two futures — both ending in tyranny

Americans are already being pushed into what look like two opposing movements, but both leave the individual powerless.

The first is the technocratic empire being constructed in the name of innovation. In its vision, human work will be replaced by machines, and digital permissions will subsume personal autonomy.

Government and corporations merge into a single authority. Your identity, finances, medical decisions, and speech rights become access points monitored by biometric scanners and enforced by automated gatekeepers. Every step, purchase, and opinion is tracked under the noble banner of “efficiency.”

The second is the green de-growth utopia being marketed as “compassion.” In this vision, prosperity itself becomes immoral. You will own less because “the planet” requires it. Elites will redesign cities so life cannot extend beyond a 15-minute walking radius, restrict movement to save the Earth, and ration resources to curb “excess.” It promises community and simplicity, but ultimately delivers enforced scarcity. Freedom withers when surviving becomes a collective permission rather than an individual right.

Both futures demand that citizens become manageable — either automated out of society or tightly regulated within it. The ruling class will embrace whichever version gives them the most leverage in any given moment.

Climate panic was losing its grip. AI dependency — and the obedience it creates — is far more potent.

The forgotten way

A third path exists, but it is the one today’s elites fear most: the path laid out in our Constitution. The founders built a system that assumes human beings are not subjects to be monitored or managed, but moral agents equipped by God with rights no government — and no algorithm — can override.

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That idea remains the most “disruptive technology” in history. It shattered the belief that people need kings or experts or global committees telling them how to live. No wonder elites want it erased.

Soon, you will be told you must choose: Live in a world run by machines or in a world stripped down for planetary salvation. Digital tyranny or rationed equality. Innovation without liberty or simplicity without dignity.

Both are traps.

The only way

The only future worth choosing is the one grounded in ordered liberty — where prosperity and progress exist alongside moral responsibility and personal freedom and human beings are treated as image-bearers of God — not climate liabilities, not data profiles, not replaceable hardware components.

Bill Gates can change his tune. The media can change the script. But the agenda remains the same.

They no longer want to save the planet. They want to run it, and they expect you to obey.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Why the White House restoration sent the left Into panic mode

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Presidents have altered the White House for decades, yet only Donald Trump is treated as a vandal for privately funding the East Wing’s restoration.

Every time a president so much as changes the color of the White House drapes, the press clutches its pearls. Unless the name on the stationery is Barack Obama’s, even routine restoration becomes a national outrage.

President Donald Trump’s decision to privately fund upgrades to the White House — including a new state ballroom — has been met with the usual chorus of gasps and sneers. You’d think he bulldozed Monticello.

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s ‘visionary.’

The irony is that presidents have altered and expanded the White House for more than a century. President Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East and West Wings in the middle of the Great Depression. Newspapers accused him of building a palace while Americans stood in breadlines. History now calls it “vision.”

First lady Nancy Reagan faced the same hysteria. Headlines accused her of spending taxpayer money on new china “while Americans starved.” In truth, she raised private funds after learning that the White House didn’t have enough matching plates for state dinners. She took the ridicule and refused to pass blame.

“I’m a big girl,” she told her staff. “This comes with the job.” That was dignity — something the press no longer recognizes.

A restoration, not a renovation

Trump’s project is different in every way that should matter. It costs taxpayers nothing. Not a cent. The president and a few friends privately fund the work. There’s no private pool or tennis court, no personal perks. The additions won’t even be completed until after he leaves office.

What’s being built is not indulgence — it’s stewardship. A restoration of aging rooms, worn fixtures, and century-old bathrooms that no longer function properly in the people’s house. Trump has paid for cast brass doorknobs engraved with the presidential seal, restored the carpets and moldings, and ensured that the architecture remains faithful to history.

The media’s response was mockery and accusations of vanity. They call it “grotesque excess,” while celebrating billion-dollar “climate art” projects and funneling hundreds of millions into activist causes like the No Kings movement. They lecture America on restraint while living off the largesse of billionaires.

The selective guardians of history

Where was this sudden reverence for history when rioters torched St. John’s Church — the same church where every president since James Madison has worshipped? The press called it an “expression of grief.”

Where was that reverence when mobs toppled statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Grant? Or when first lady Melania Trump replaced the Rose Garden’s lawn with a patio but otherwise followed Jackie Kennedy’s original 1962 plans in the garden’s restoration? They called that “desecration.”

If a Republican preserves beauty, it’s vandalism. If a Democrat does the same, it’s “visionary.”

The real desecration

The people shrieking about “historic preservation” care nothing for history. They hate the idea that something lasting and beautiful might be built by hands they despise. They mock craftsmanship because it exposes their own cultural decay.

The White House ballroom is not a scandal — it’s a mirror. And what it reflects is the media’s own pettiness. The ruling class that ridicules restoration is the same class that cheered as America’s monuments fell. Its members sneer at permanence because permanence condemns them.

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Trump’s improvements are an act of faith — in the nation’s symbols, its endurance, and its worth. The outrage over a privately funded renovation says less about him than it does about the journalists who mistake destruction for progress.

The real desecration isn’t happening in the East Wing. It’s happening in the newsrooms that long ago tore up their own foundation — truth — and never bothered to rebuild it.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Trump’s secret war in the Caribbean EXPOSED — It’s not about drugs

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The president’s moves in Venezuela, Guyana, and Colombia aren’t about drugs. They’re about re-establishing America’s sovereignty across the Western Hemisphere.

For decades, we’ve been told America’s wars are about drugs, democracy, or “defending freedom.” But look closer at what’s unfolding off the coast of Venezuela, and you’ll see something far more strategic taking shape. Donald Trump’s so-called drug war isn’t about fentanyl or cocaine. It’s about control — and a rebirth of American sovereignty.

The aim of Trump’s ‘drug war’ is to keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

The president understands something the foreign policy class forgot long ago: The world doesn’t respect apologies. It respects strength.

While the global elites in Davos tout the Great Reset, Trump is building something entirely different — a new architecture of power based on regional independence, not global dependence. His quiet campaign in the Western Hemisphere may one day be remembered as the second Monroe Doctrine.

Venezuela sits at the center of it all. It holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves — oil perfectly suited for America’s Gulf refineries. For years, China and Russia have treated Venezuela like a pawn on their chessboard, offering predatory loans in exchange for control of those resources. The result has been a corrupt, communist state sitting in our own back yard. For too long, Washington shrugged. Not any more.The naval exercises in the Caribbean, the sanctions, the patrols — they’re not about drug smugglers. They’re about evicting China from our hemisphere.

Trump is using the old “drug war” playbook to wage a new kind of war — an economic and strategic one — without firing a shot at our actual enemies. The goal is simple: Keep the hemisphere’s oil, minerals, and manufacturing within the Western family and out of Beijing’s hands.

Beyond Venezuela

Just east of Venezuela lies Guyana, a country most Americans couldn’t find on a map a year ago. Then ExxonMobil struck oil, and suddenly Guyana became the newest front in a quiet geopolitical contest. Washington is helping defend those offshore platforms, build radar systems, and secure undersea cables — not for charity, but for strategy. Control energy, data, and shipping lanes, and you control the future.

Moreover, Colombia — a country once defined by cartels — is now positioned as the hinge between two oceans and two continents. It guards the Panama Canal and sits atop rare-earth minerals every modern economy needs. Decades of American presence there weren’t just about cocaine interdiction; they were about maintaining leverage over the arteries of global trade. Trump sees that clearly.

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All of these recent news items — from the military drills in the Caribbean to the trade negotiations — reflect a new vision of American power. Not global policing. Not endless nation-building. It’s about strategic sovereignty.

It’s the same philosophy driving Trump’s approach to NATO, the Middle East, and Asia. We’ll stand with you — but you’ll stand on your own two feet. The days of American taxpayers funding global security while our own borders collapse are over.

Trump’s Monroe Doctrine

Critics will call it “isolationism.” It isn’t. It’s realism. It’s recognizing that America’s strength comes not from fighting other people’s wars but from securing our own energy, our own supply lines, our own hemisphere. The first Monroe Doctrine warned foreign powers to stay out of the Americas. The second one — Trump’s — says we’ll defend them, but we’ll no longer be their bank or their babysitter.

Historians may one day mark this moment as the start of a new era — when America stopped apologizing for its own interests and started rebuilding its sovereignty, one barrel, one chip, and one border at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

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The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

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This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.