As taxpayers raise concerns about corruption in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky told Ben Shapiro he would be open to an audit into the use of American funds.

In a face-to-face exclusive interview with Shapiro in war-town Kyiv, Zelensky said he is prepared to allow inspectors to review how the more than $174 billion in American aid has been used to support Ukraine’s war against Russia.

“We’re always ready for any audit,” Zelensky said. “There’s nothing to hide. We are absolutely open, transparent, and that is what’s happening.”

Zelensky said that U.S. inspectors have had oversight following Russia attempting to “undermine the support and assistance coming from the United States” through “fake news and other tools” at the start of the war.

Zelensky added that he is “grateful to all the U.S. taxpayers.”

“We are grateful to the bipartisan support in Congress,” he said. “We are grateful to the unity around the fight of Ukraine for independence…and the great contribution of the United States in the defense of our people.”

He added that he has his own “internal audit” where his government is “documenting how much assistance was provided.”

According to Zelensky, Ukraine has received $104-$105 billion in assistance, most of which comes in the form of military support.

“The money was paid to the transportation of those weapons,” Zelensky said. “Ukrainian companies were not allowed to transport this money. That’s why we haven’t received it — not in the public, not in the private sector — the money for the transportation.”

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, Congress appropriated more than $174 billion for Ukraine. The funds have been used for security assistance and weaponry, or for economic and humanitarian assistance, including direct budget support for the Ukrainian government, aid for refugees, improving the health sector, and repairing infrastructure such as the energy grid.

Zelensky said he is not attempting to argue with the United States by claiming he is getting nearly $70 billion less than the United States government is reporting.

“It’s important that both countries and — the taxpayers know — where their money is,” he said. “In terms of the use of that money primarily, it was for the weapons that were used on the battlefield.”

In total, the Ukrainian government was directly given $22.9 billion by USAID for direct budget support, mostly for reimbursing salaries for teachers, civil servants, and healthcare workers, according to the GAO.

“We are very grateful for all that,” Zelensky said. “The United States has to know that they were not feeding our pensioners and our soldiers with regards to the salary or the compensation. Surely you’ve provided the most important aspects — that is the weapons.”

The GAO recommended several ways to improve oversight of funding in Ukraine, including tracking the unprecedented amount of military equipment given to the country, making training initiatives more efficient, properly assessing the value of assets given, and more.

The report also points out that the State Department does not have a “systematic, comprehensive approach to specifically track funding that federal agencies have provided for economic and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.”

Zelensky argued that the United States benefited from providing financial support to Ukraine because it has received intel about weaponry, including drones being used in the current conflict.

Zelensky added that Ukraine is keeping Russia from invading NATO countries that would pull the United States into a much larger war.

“I’ve mentioned it many times before, the U.S will have to protect the other NATO countries, because such an agreement exists, or the U.S. will have to leave NATO,” Zelensky said. “ So as long as Russians are not in any single NATO member nation, your families are not facing this question. So that will be a major question for your families: Are they going to send your child to war?”

Moments after protesters near Yale University hurled invective and bottles at him, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir sat down with The Daily Wire to discuss why he refuses to be silenced by his critics.

“If I wasn’t so influential they wouldn’t have cared,” Ben-Gvir said. “They think they can use violence to defeat us. They will not defeat us. They will not win. Their violence will not win.”

Ben-Gvir is a boogeyman to the Israeli Left and Western media due to his extremely hawkish, right-wing views. While much criticism targets his controversial past, his hardline stances also receive scrutiny, including his proposal this week to bomb food storage facilities in Gaza to pressure the terror group to release the 59 remaining hostages.

Before his arrival at an event close to Yale on Wednesday night, about 300 students and local activists gathered to demonstrate against his presence. Chants such as “Ben-Gvir will fall” and “intifada, intifada” were shouted throughout the night.

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As students arrived, they were shouted at and booed by the angry mob, and when they left, some had water bottles thrown at them.

Despite the uproar, Ben-Gvir said he enjoyed spending time with the students.

“I really really enjoyed it here at the end, even though someone threw bottles at me,” the Israeli government official said. “It doesn’t scare me. I am saying my truth and I will walk with my truth. I will keep saying it and I will fight for it.”

The day before, Ben-Gvir was at Mar-a-Lago, where he was welcomed by applause from a crowd filled with Trump allies and members of Congress. He said that the reception likely wouldn’t have happened if President Donald Trump had lost because he was detested by the Biden administration.

“It would have been likely that they would not admit me and here I am today, from a situation where I was a persona-non-grata, to a situation where I am being loved,” he said. “I enter their room and there is an applause for what I say, on our ideas, on our world view, on the fact that I want a big and strong state of Israel.”

Ben-Gvir said he believes the protesters are angry at him for several changes he made in Israel regarding firearm carrying, prison reform, and non-Muslim prayer on the Temple Mount, in addition to the Gaza conflict.

“I made reform in gun carrying laws in Israel. Before I came into office there were 8,000 gun licenses and after I came there were 200,000. And it works, it works, Jewish lives are being saved,” he said. “In the jails of Israel there was a complete summer camp, marmalades and chocolates and pitas and endless outdoor walks around the yard and there was no governance. I changed that, I stopped the summer camps, I took everything from them: the radio, the TVs, the education.”

Ben-Gvir, who is frequently criticized for advocating for Jews to be allowed to pray on the Temple Mount, said he helped change the status quo that forbade Jewish prayer.

“I made many, many changes,” he said. “That is why they are so angry at me and that’s why Hamas tried to assassinate me five times. And what does it say? I stand with my truths with my world view, and I really know we are right, and this is why we will win.”

While Ben-Gvir labels himself as a free speech advocate, he said the protesters outside his event were not engaged in free speech.

“Throwing bottles at me, trying to physically hurt me,” he said. “That is no freedom of speech. They want to intimidate, they want to shut people down.”

He added that he supports Trump’s plan to deport foreign students who are supporters of terrorists.

“I fully support Trump’s policy on U.S. universities,” he said. “I hope it will bring change because, in many places, the universities have turned into grounds for terrorism and support for terrorism. Who do they support? Child murderers? Women murderers?”

​Ben-Gvir was invited to speak at Shabtai, founded in 1996 as a Jewish alternative to other Ivy League intellectual discussion societies, though it is not officially affiliated with the university. Non-Jews are also invited, with prominent figures such as Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy among the ranks of affiliates.

Ben-Gvir, who hasn’t traveled to the United States since he was a child, said he came at his son’s urging.

“My son was here in Miami, he was a bit in New York several months ago, he told me ‘dad, you must come, you must come,’” Ben-Gvir recalled. “First of all the people: they are such good people. Good people. They love the country … and the things I encountered, I felt great love, great embrace.”

When asked why Americans should support Israel, Ben-Gvir said that the Jewish state is helping fight America’s enemies.

“I think Israel also fights America’s war — our war is not just for Israel,” he said. “Understand, those Hamas folk, my neighbors in Hebron, they don’t want only Hebron. They want Jerusalem, Acre, Haifa and Jaffa. If you question them a bit further, they tell you that their end goal is the entire world. Everywhere there would be caliphates. Everything will be Hamas.”

Ben-Gvir added that he is enjoying the close relationship with the Trump administration and hopes that the president follows through with his plans to take over Gaza and relocate Gazans.

“Trump has an excellent plan,” he said. “It is correct, it is right and it is ethical.”