Healthcare-focused SPAC Blue Water Acquisition IV prices $125 million IPO

 Blue Water Acquisition IV, a fourth blank check company led by the founder of Blue Water Venture Partners targeting healthcare and tech, raised $125 million by offering 12.5 million units at $10. Each unit consists of one share of common stock and one-half of one warrant, exercisable at $11.50.

Blue Water Acquisition IV is led by CEO and Chairman Joseph Hernandez, the founder and Senior Managing Partner of investment firm Blue Water Venture Partners, and the founder of 2022 biotech IPO Blue Water Vaccines (now Onconetix; ONCO). The SPAC plans to target the biotechnology, healthcare, and technology sectors. Particular areas of interest include pharmaceuticals, medical devices, telemedicine, AI/ML, and cloud computing, among others.

Management has led various SPACs, most recently Blue Water Acquisition III (BLUWU; +5% from offer price), which made headlines for its submission of an unsolicited bid to acquire Citgo Petroleum parent PDV Holding this past September, before it later suspended that bid in November. Blue Water Acquisition II (BWTRU) filed for a $75 million IPO in October 2021, but withdrew its filing the following August. The first Blue Water Acquisition merged with Clarus Therapeutics in 2021, a company that later filed for bankruptcy in 2022.

Blue Water Acquisition IV plans to list on the NYSE under the symbol BWIV.U. BTIG acted as sole bookrunner on the deal.

Relevant Profile: BWIV.U

https://www.renaissancecapital.com/IPO-Center/News/117779/Healthcare-focused-SPAC-Blue-Water-Acquisition-IV-prices-$125-million-IPO

Iran’s Strike Attempt on Diego Garcia Reveals Missile Range

 

Iran launched ballistic missiles at the joint US-UK military base in Diego Garcia on Friday, demonstrating a missile capability that goes beyond what Tehran was known to have possessed.

The base, a strategic airfield that can host B-2 stealth bombers located nearly 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) away from Iran, suffered no damage, according to a person familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity. The attack was the first time in the three-week-old war that Tehran was reported to have used weapons with that kind of range.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-21/iran-s-failed-diego-garcia-strike-is-show-of-missile-capability

UK COVID Inquiry Finds Lockdowns May Have Cost 1000s Of Lives

 by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

The authoritarian COVID lockdowns and stay-at-home orders sold as life-saving measures have been unmasked once again as a deadly failure of big government overreach.

A new UK Covid-19 Inquiry report has concluded that the relentless “Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives” messaging likely cost thousands of lives by convincing people they could not get access to health services.

The inquiry, led by Baroness Hallett, slammed the slogan created by Cabinet Office officials without input from health leaders. It “led some people to feel they must avoid burdening the NHS” and “may have inadvertently sent the message that healthcare was closed,” contributing to a sharp decline in A&E attendances for life-threatening emergencies such as heart attacks.

The report states plainly: “It is clear that, during the pandemic, worsening delays in diagnosis and treatment led to increased ill-health and suffering and, in some cases, cost lives.” Some patients waited so long their conditions became “untreatable,” with permanent loss of mobility.

Baroness Hallett stressed: “It is important that government communication campaigns do not deter those in need from accessing healthcare.” She urged future governments to consult healthcare professionals on messaging “to avoid unintended consequences.”

Office for National Statistics data backs this up, recording more than 17,000 excess deaths from non-Covid conditions at the height of the pandemic. Cancer screenings were paused, diagnoses plummeted, and non-urgent care cancellations left patients suffering. Hospital visiting bans were branded too tough, with dying people left alone and families devastated.

The NHS itself “coped, but only just,” teetering on the brink of collapse under “intolerable strain,” per Hallett, who noted politicians like then-health secretary Matt Hancock were reluctant to admit the system was overwhelmed.

The findings come on the back of mountains of research indicating isolation policies inflicted generational damage on children’s development. 

A recent University of East Anglia-led study, published in Child Development, concuded that lockdowns may have permanently damaged kids’ brain development through lost socialisation and routine.

The study tracked 139 children and found the greatest harm hit reception-year pupils aged four to five when the first lockdowns struck in March 2020 – a critical window for learning routines, friendships, and self-regulation.

Lead researcher Prof John Spencer said: “Children who were in reception when the country shut down showed much slower growth in key self-regulation and cognitive flexibility skills over the next few years than children who were still in preschool.”

He added: “Reception is a critical year for peer socialisation. It’s when children learn classroom norms and build early friendships that shape their confidence.”

Without those experiences, “children’s self-regulatory skills didn’t develop as quickly year-on-year after the lockdowns ended.” The study concluded: “Without these experiences, reception children had a challenging time developing self-regulation and cognitive flexibility in the years that followed the pandemic.”

That research adds to a cascade of older studies exposing the full horror.

A 2023 report by Speech and Language UK revealed the average child missed 84 school days due to Covid policies. Eight in ten teachers reported worsened pupil inattention post-pandemic, blaming screen-based “learning” and stunted social skills.

Teachers have also noted rises in needless chatter, shouting, and inappropriate laughing, with the “ever-swiping nature” of social media like TikTok worsening the fallout.

Previous research showed teenage girls’ brains aged prematurely by up to four years during lockdowns, with boys affected by one-and-a-half years—linked to social restrictions hitting girls harder.

University of Washington researchers compared MRI scans from 2018 to post-pandemic ones in 2021-2022, finding accelerated cortical thinning, a natural process tied to anxiety, stress, and higher disorder risks. Whether this is permanent remains unclear, but it spotlights the unseen toll of isolating youth.

This latest warning adds to a mountain of evidence exposing lockdowns as a disastrous overreach that prioritized control over common sense, devastating children’s futures.

A previous study highlighted how lockdowns drove 60,000 children in the UK to clinical depression, with the enforced isolation sparking widespread mental health crises among youth that required professional intervention.

Another investigation revealed that babies born during lockdown were less likely to speak before their first birthday, as the lack of face-to-face interactions and exposure to facial expressions hindered early language acquisition.

A further study found many children unable to say their own name due to the impact of lockdown, pointing to profound speech and developmental delays from limited social engagement.

Research also uncovered that children were suffering from as many as three different viruses simultaneously due to weakened immunity caused by lockdown, since prolonged indoor confinement prevented the natural building of defenses against common pathogens.

In addition, an outbreak of hepatitis in children was directly attributed to lockdowns that weakened immunity, resulting in unexpected surges of the liver condition among previously healthy kids.

Doctors also raised alarms over a mysterious outbreak of brain infections in Nevada kids, believing it was linked to COVID lockdowns that left children’s immune systems vulnerable and unprepared for routine exposures.

Disturbing lockdown drawings also illustrated the severe effect on children’s mental health, where artwork captured the trauma, fear, and emotional distress from being cut off from normal life.

These findings, among others like excess deaths and ignored warnings, paint a picture of policy failure. Lockdown zealots dismissed the collateral damage, but the data doesn’t lie—government mandates crushed freedom and futures alike.

These inquiries and studies should bury any remaining excuses for repeating such experiments. Surrendering liberty to bureaucrats never saves lives – it only costs them, and scars the next generation forever.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/uk-covid-inquiry-finds-lockdowns-may-have-cost-1000s-lives

"I'd Like To Pay Their Salaries": Musk Offers Lifeline To TSA Agents As Dems Hold Pay Hostage

 The Department of Homeland Security shutdown entered its 36th day on Saturday after Senate Democrats blocked yet another funding bill for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Transportation Security Administration, and other federal agencies, triggering weeks of chaos at airports nationwide, including long TSA checkpoint lines during the peak of the spring break travel season.

Early Saturday morning, Elon Musk, closely tracking the DHS funding lapse, wrote on X that he would personally pay the salaries of TSA agents to get them back to airports and help avert further chaos.

"I would like to offer to pay the salaries of TSA personnel during this funding impasse that is negatively affecting the lives of so many Americans at airports throughout the country," Musk said.

On Friday, a motion to advance a funding bill failed 47-37, falling short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster. John Fetterman (Pa.) was the only Democrat to vote "yes" on the DHS funding bill. Sixteen senators from both parties were absent for the vote. This marks the fifth time Democrats have blocked the Homeland Security Appropriations bill since DHS funding ended in mid-February.

Democrats have been absolutely furious over any funding bill for ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that does not include reforms to immigration enforcement operations. That is mostly because they are watching President Trump erode their political power by deporting the very illegal aliens their party allowed to invade the nation under the Biden-Harris regime. Remember, these illegals are the future voting bloc of the Democratic Party, meant to seize political control by disenfranchising citizens.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) is planning to force a vote sometime today on a proposal to fund the TSA.

"The chaos at TSA is reaching a boiling point. We need to reopen it as quickly as possible. That is what Senate Democrats are intent on doing," Schumer said.

Related:

• "Problem Is Solvable": Airline CEOs Urge Congress To End Shutdown, Pay TSA Workers

By the end of the week, 10% of all TSA workers did not show up for work - just below the record 10.22% absentee rate set at the start of the week. Nearly 400 agents have quit so far in the months-long shutdown, according to DHS. These workers have been without pay since mid-last month, when the Democratic Party began using these agents as political pawns.

The severity of the government shutdown this time has not yet reached the crisis level of travel disruption seen during the 43-day shutdown late last year, when air traffic controllers were used as leverage in political disputes, disrupting air travel nationwide. To prevent such issues in the future, perhaps privatization talks for these agencies should begin.

Is it possible that an unhinged, left-wing judge might try to block Musk from offering to pay TSA agents' salaries during the funding lapse?

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/id-pay-their-salaries-elon-musk-offers-lifeline-tsa-agents-democrats-hold-paychecks

FBI Misled Court To Spy on Second Trump Campaign Adviser

 by Paul Sperry

Carter Page wasn’t the only adviser from Trump’s first campaign wiretapped by the FBI. Walid Phares was electronically monitored for a 12-month period between 2017 and 2018, according to the Washington-based FBI agent who was assigned to investigate him as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia collusion probe.

As in Page’s case, the bureau withheld evidence exonerating Phares from the court to secure surveillance authorization, according to newly declassified FBI documents.

“I had no idea any of this was happening,” Phares told RealClearInvestigations in an exclusive interview Wednesday night. “This is shocking because they told my lawyer that I was only a ‘witness’ and that they just needed some information.”

“But these were huge abuses that I can see now,” he added. Phares said he intends to sue the FBI and Justice Department for damages.

The 68-year-old Lebanese-American scholar said case agents and prosecutors grilled him for months, questioned his employer, and even went after his bank records. As a result, he said he lost his job at a university, his livelihood, and even his bank accounts and credit card after Wells Fargo cancelled them.

“It was like a disaster for me financially and physically,” he said. “I also lost my Fox News contract” as an expert on terrorism and the Middle East, which he had held since 2007.

Phares was not hired by the Trump administration, even though he had been expected to land a high-level foreign policy position. “They scared the agencies from me so I would have problems with (obtaining) a security clearance,” he said.

‘No Corroborating Facts’

Investigators could find “nothing” criminal on Phares during their probe, according to the lead case agent, and in fact, they concluded he was “honest.” Yet Mueller’s team continued to secretly spy on Phares – without providing the powerful federal spy court any of the exculpatory evidence that could clear Phares as required by law.

The agent told investigators in a separate 2020 internal FBI review that “there were no corroborating facts that tied Crosswind [the codename for Phares’ case] to certain facts that we thought were originally true,” according to a transcript of his testimony, released after more than five years of concealment.

He added that “nothing” collected from Phares’ communications under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants, including phone messages and emails, “aided the investigation other than to prove the target was being honest with investigators,” who had interviewed him repeatedly.

Nonetheless, the FBI continued monitoring Phares as part of a Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) investigation. He was never charged with any violations of the act.

“There was a ‘let’s get him’ attitude among prosecutors on Mueller’s team,” the agent said, according to the new documents, noting that several prosecutors shared an anti-Trump bias and even tacked up negative cartoons of the president on the walls of their office.

The FBI agent, whose name is redacted in several pages of declassified FBI documents released by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, added that “there was nothing confirming Crosswind [Phares] received a large money payment, and nothing confirming Crosswind had a meeting in another country for the purposes of the initial allegation.”

Misleading the Court

When Mueller’s team applied for the fourth and final warrant to secretly surveil Phares in 2018, the agent argued that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court  [FISC] needed to be alerted to how new information “had changed our understanding of our initial analysis” that Phares was a foreign agent. He suggested several corrections, but was rebuffed by an FBI lawyer.

“I pointed out these specific corrections to the application in numerous instances throughout the FISA process,” the agent said. “I sent these edits to Kevin Clinesmith who said, ‘We can’t send this to DOJ.’”

A senior FBI attorney, Clinesmith had also been assigned to Mueller’s team, which agreed the corrections were unnecessary.

It wouldn’t be the first time Clinesmith, whose internal texts and emails show he had an intense anti-Trump bias, withheld exculpatory evidence from the FISA court.

Clinesmith later pleaded guilty to altering evidence used in an application to renew a FISA warrant to spy on another Trump adviser, Page, whom the FBI falsely accused of acting as a Russian agent. To secure the renewal, Clinesmith changed the wording in an intelligence email that exonerated Page, reversing its meaning.

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz found the FBI based its warrants targeting Page largely on a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier of false opposition research. The IG concluded the FBI abused its FISA authority while spying on Page, including failing to disclose exculpatory evidence to the surveillance court. Far from aiding Moscow, the former Naval officer had previously worked with the CIA and FBI to help catch Russian spies, as RCI first reported.

The FISA court subsequently invalidated some of the warrants against Page, who was never charged with a crime and is now suing the FBI and DOJ for $75 million for violating his constitutional rights against improper searches and seizures.

His case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court, but the DOJ’s solicitor general has repeatedly delayed filing a response to his petition, claiming he has other “pressing” matters. The high bench has set the next filing deadline for April 22.

The year-long FISA eavesdropping on Phares appears to be missing from both Horowitz’s and Special Counsel John Durham’s reports investigating FBI abuses in the Russiagate scandal, raising fresh questions about the thoroughness of those investigations. It is still not clear if the three other Trump campaign officials subject to Russiagate investigations – Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn, and George Papadopoulos – were also wiretapped. 

 

A $10 Million Bribe?

In an RCI interview, Phares said the false allegations against him originated with the CIA, which issued a report in 2016 alleging he had taken a $10 million bribe from the Egyptian government intended for the Trump campaign during a meeting in Cairo.

John Brennan, an Obama appointee, was the director of the CIA at the time. He is currently under federal grand jury investigation for his role in the Russiagate hoax.

DOJ is building a “grand conspiracy” case against former Obama and Biden officials for allegedly committing political espionage against Trump and his advisers by manufacturing criminal investigations and depriving them of their rights under color of law. It’s not immediately known if the investigation includes the Phares case. The FBI and DOJ did not respond to requests for comment.

Although the Mueller investigation’s primary mandate was to investigate ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, it veered into additional investigative areas, including probing campaign contacts with other foreign governments.

Phares had taken trips to Cairo during the 2016 campaign while advising Trump on the Middle East. 

The investigating agent said the highly classified intelligence agency reports that Phares secretly worked with the Egyptian government to influence the incoming administration “were disproven.”

“Despite this, the [Mueller] team still went on with the third renewal of the FISA [against Phares],” he said.

The investigation was closed in 2019, and Phares was never charged with a crime. Mueller’s $30 million-plus investigation ultimately found no evidence of Trump campaign collusion with Russia or any foreign government.

Misconduct and Bias

Grassley said the FBI agent’s testimony “details substantial allegations of misconduct and political bias occurring within Special Counsel Mueller’s office during the investigation,” including “misleading the FISC,” or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

The Republican senator has requested DOJ provide his committee “all FISA applications, predication material and related reporting” from the Crosswind probe to understand the full extent to which the FISA court was misled.

The identity of the FISA judges who approved the top-secret warrants is not yet known. But the presiding FISC judge at the time was Rosemary Collyer, a George W. Bush appointee who personally signed off on the wiretapping of Carter Page. Before resigning in 2020, Collyer issued an order stating that the FBI in its sworn affidavits had “provided false information and withheld material information detrimental to the FBI’s case [against Page].”

RCI first reported that Phares was the subject of a FARA investigation approved by former Obama DOJ official David Laufman, along with four other Trump campaign officials. But the revelation he was also put under FISA surveillance – the government’s most powerful investigative tool – had not been known until Grassley’s disclosures earlier this week.

Phares said he suspected he might be under some kind of surveillance but didn’t know for certain until this week’s release of the declassified FBI documents. He said he recently received notices from Hotmail and Yahoo that the DOJ had sought records from his email accounts through an unspecified legal process.

“They were fishing,” he told RCI.

Although agents working with Mueller initially asked Phares about Russia, they soon zeroed in on his dealings with Egypt. Mueller’s prosecutors later told him he was merely a witness, not a target.

Phares said he was first interviewed in September 2017 by Washington-based FBI agents working for Mueller.

“Two agents showed up at my door flashing badges and asked if we could speak,” he recalled. “I welcomed them in because I was a lead lecturer at the FBI (on counterterrorism), but they took four hours questioning me, and it made my wife very uncomfortable.”

Added Phares: “I made a huge mistake not lawyering up earlier.”

‘Rougher and Tougher’

He said their questions got “rougher and tougher” over the next few months of interviews, which he said later included Mueller prosecutor Zainab Ahmad, who was originally hired at Main Justice in the Spring of 2016 by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

Ahmad was one of the key Mueller team members responsible for handling the controversial perjury case against former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, which was later thrown out. Like Flynn, Phares was an outspoken critic of Islamic terrorism, Obama’s Iranian nuclear deal, and the influence of the radical, pro-jihad Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and America.

He said he believes the Obama administration – including Brennan’s CIA – was also monitoring him during the 2016 campaign.

Declassified briefing notes from a meeting shortly after Trump took office between former deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and Obama-appointed officials with DOJ’s national security division indicate that the FBI and DOJ were “working on a FISA application” targeting “Walid Phares” as early as March 2017.

“They knew they had nothing on Russia, so they went after me on Egypt. But the main target was President Trump,” Phares said. “They had to neutralize him and any of his associates who could carry out his agenda.”

Civil-rights watchdogs have called the egregious spying violations against Carter Page the worst abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act since it was enacted more than 45 years ago. Now another U.S. citizen may have been subjected to even worse abuses.

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2026/03/20/fbi_misled_court_to_spy_on_second_trump_campaign_adviser_1171646.html

Iran’s 'day after' debate shifts from regime change to who governs next

 As the Islamic Republic trembles under internal dissent and external pressure, a once-theoretical question is becoming urgent: What comes the day after? For decades, Western policymakers focused on how to constrain Iran.

Now, as Reza Pahlavi steps forward with a detailed post-regime vision, the conversation is shifting to what comes next and whether anyone is prepared for it.

A recent Jerusalem Post report pointed to a striking reality. “Unlike many opposition figures, Pahlavi is not only calling for regime change but presenting a plan for what follows.” That distinction matters.

His proposed Iran Prosperity Project outlines a structured transition beginning the moment the Islamic Republic falls, including a provisional governing body, the restoration of order, and a rapid move toward a national referendum and elections within months.

That approach reflects lessons learned from the region. As a Post analysis noted, “Regime change without a clear framework risks repeating the failures seen in Iraq and Libya.” Those examples continue to shape how policymakers think about Iran. The collapse of a regime, on its own, does not produce stability.

It can just as easily produce a vacuum, competing militias, foreign interference, and years of bloodshed. That is precisely why planning matters now, before events begin moving faster than policymakers can manage.

Iran’s future: Roadmap or chaos after regime collapse

The substance of Pahlavi’s road map is therefore central to the discussion. His proposals include dismantling the Islamic Republic’s constitutional framework, replacing it with a democratic legal order, and maintaining continuity in essential services – from energy to financial systems – to prevent state collapse.

In theory, it offers a structured transition from upheaval to governance. It also tries to reassure Iranians that the fall of the regime would not have to mean the collapse of the state itself.

But theory is not reality.

The first question is legitimacy. Pahlavi’s name carries historical weight, both positive and negative. For some Iranians, particularly in the diaspora and among monarchist circles, the slogan “Javid shah” (Long live the shah) reflects a longing for pre-revolutionary stability.

For others, it raises memories of authoritarian rule and inequality. A transition led, even temporarily, by a figure tied to Iran’s past may struggle to unify a divided public.

The second question is internal traction. This paper’s coverage has highlighted Pahlavi’s growing visibility and his calls for Iranians to prepare for a decisive “final call” against the regime.

Visibility abroad, however, does not automatically translate into authority on the ground. Revolutions are shaped inside the country, on the streets, within the security forces, and across the networks that sustain power. Exiled leadership can inspire, but it cannot substitute for internal organization and legitimacy.

A third issue is the role of external actors. Israel and the US may help shape the strategic environment that weakens the Islamic Republic, but they cannot determine Tehran’s political future.

Even planning for a “day after Iran” scenario requires restraint. Transitional periods carry risks, including nuclear uncertainty, score-settling inside the regime, ethnic and regional fragmentation, and a scramble for control among armed factions.

Still, dismissing Pahlavi’s plan would be a mistake.

For the first time in years, there is a structured attempt to answer a question that has long hovered over discussions about Iran: If not the Islamic Republic, then what? His framework, while contested, provides a starting point.

It signals that regime change can be paired with an effort to preserve order, restore services, and create a path toward public legitimacy rather than chaos.

Iran’s future will not be decided by any single figure. It will emerge from a convergence of forces: protesters in Tehran, workers in provincial cities, elements within the security establishment, and voices in exile seeking to influence events.

The challenge is to remove a regime and replace it with something durable.

History offers a clear lesson. Revolutions are judged not only by how regimes fall but by what follows. Institutions must be rebuilt. Security must be restored without returning to repression. Political legitimacy must be earned over time.

Pahlavi’s vision attempts to address that gap. Whether it can succeed remains uncertain. But the existence of a plan, however debated, already changes the conversation.

For years, the question of Iran’s future was deferred. That is no longer the case.

If the Islamic Republic collapses tomorrow, the vacuum will not wait. The question is whether anyone is ready for what comes next.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-890472

Fetterman: Democrat Party Has No Leader, Governed By TDS

 

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), on the "All-In" podcast, said he no longer knows what the Democratic Party stands for, arguing it has become increasingly anti-Israel, intolerant of dissenting views, and led by "Trump Derangement Syndrome."

"We don't have one," Fetterman said of a party leader. "I think the TDS, that I think that's the leader right now. You know, right now our, our party is, is governed by the TDS, and now it's made it virtually impossible without being punished as a Democrat to agree."

DAVID FRIEDBERG, CO-HOST: What do you think the Democratic Party used to stand for? What does it stand for today? And what do you think it should stand for?

SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): I honestly, I don't know. But what I will say, as I would refer to to your listeners is like, listen to what the people that are running for the Senate as Democrats, watch what they're saying and doing. And that's becoming more and more anti-Israel, openly hostile to Israel.

And now that becomes part of the litmus, litmus purity test. I'm not going to take any of their money. I'm going to denounce that.

And I was the only Democrat that [said] absolutely, Netanyahu has done the right thing to break the that access there. Hezbollah and Hamas are now attacking also Houthis as well. So, I mean, so do you know where what Democrats stand for? See who's running for the Senate. And now Plantner, the Nazi tattoo guy, you know, on top of being an avowed communist and now said incredibly offensive things about women and sexual assault and now refers to rural people as stupid and racist. So is that what Democrats want?

I guess we'll see that. But, you know, you see in all these different things also in Michigan, too, a guy that really, as far as I know, has refused to condemn Hamas. And he led the, you know, no, the no. What was the no committed? It's like, forget what that stupid thing was called. But it was like, you know, no vote, no vote for uncommitted, uncommitted, uncommitted. You know, we're not going to vote for Kamala Harris. And now they help deliver Trump for Michigan. So that's like, look who's running and look who's being competitive. So that's you want to know where Democrats are. Look in those kinds of races.

FRIEDBERG: You know, it's interesting. We used to have the ability to agree on some things and disagree on other things. It seems nowadays, whatever the other side is doing or saying, you have to take the opposing view.

And in many cases, it seems like that might force folks to kind of contort into these weird positions that don't even make logical sense. Why did we get to this point? What happened that everything had to be polar?

There was never the ability for us to, there's no longer the ability for us to agree on some things while disagreeing on other things. What caused this change in this country? And can we get back from it?

FETTERMAN: I don't know. Like, part of my party's become so inflexible. What I've discovered that, you know, you are not allowed to be a proud, unapologetic standing with Israel, but it's okay.

It's not a big deal if you have a Nazi tattoo on your chest and you have people in now in my party now are trying to normalize that or to excuse that. I mean, like it's, that's kind of where we are. And now I know what's toxic as a Democrat to disagree with.

But for me, those are, I think our core values, you know, the kinds of values in Israel, kinds of the core value that we have always used to say, never, ever shut our government down. That's always wrong. You're going to punish union members. You're going to punish, you know, everyday Americans. Now here we're doing those same things. And now I think our border, for example, I think secure our border, deport all the criminals, but now never, ever have the kind of tragedies like we had in Minneapolis.

That's not what anyone really voted for anything supports. So, you know, if I'm more popular with Republicans, I don't really know. But, but I also that I, I treat everyone with respect and I don't refer to Republicans or members of MAGA. They're not Nazis. They're not fascists. They're not trying to destroy our country.

No, I know. And I love many, many people that voted for or support President Trump. I'm going to treat anybody with respect. I don't attack members of their families. I don't use those kinds of attacks. We have to find a better way forward. And that's what I've been maintaining.

FRIEDBERG: Who do you think leads the Democratic Party today?

FETTERMAN: Oh, we don't, we don't have one. I think, I think the, the TDS that I think that's the leader right now. You know, right now our, our party is, is governed by the TDS and now it's made it virtually impossible without being punished as a Democrat to agree.

Something's good or I agree with the other side. And I, I would define that by epic fury. I am literally the only Democrat in America in Congress that I've come across that's saying, I think it's a great thing to break and destroy the Iranian regime.

I think it's entirely appropriate to hold them accountable. And what's strange to me that every single Democrat that's run for president and anyone that I know in Congress says we must never allow them to acquire a nuclear bomb. When that happens, why not celebrate that or acknowledge that?

I have only witnessed just criticism and this kinds of, this kinds of attack. Like, yeah, you don't have to agree on every single thing, but when a good thing happens, just because it comes from the different party, that, that tells me that you're choosing the demand of the base or the party over country or what, what's really, I think, appropriate in that circumstances. Now, I would say now, you know, to any country, any country, do you consume oil? Yes, of course we do. Well, then that makes it your problem too. That makes you part of your responsibility.

I don't know why, you know, like Israel and, and our nation did the heavy leaving, excuse me, the, the heavy, the heavy work to, to, to destroy the Iranian military apparatus. You know, now why not, wouldn't you not, you know, help us to reopen the straits? Because you consume oil.You all could be the ability to, why not part, participate that? That's, that's strange to me. So I think everyone, why can't you get behind?

The only ones that aren't are China and Russia. Those are the same kinds of, especially in Europe, you know, what they're doing to Ukraine for over four years. And we all know what the goals of China is. So to say it's not our war, it's like, yeah, well, it's our cause. And if you consume oil and you all do, you know, that effectively makes us all part of this responsibility.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2026/03/20/fetterman_democratic_party_has_no_leader_governed_by_trump_derangement_syndrome.html