The Ben Shapiro Show - October 27, 2023


No, I Won’t Give Up My AR-15


Episode Stats

Length

48 minutes

Words per Minute

212.02072

Word Count

10,230

Sentence Count

766

Misogynist Sentences

12

Hate Speech Sentences

31


Summary

Mass shooter in Maine still at large, 18 dead, 13 injured, lives ended, lives destroyed, families wrecked. In America, such events quickly devolve into the usual arguments. Those who argue for gun control blame the weapon carried by the shooter. They point out that he was carrying an AR-15 and that he had a high-capacity magazine. They say that Maine s gun laws are too loose, and that if they were tighter, the shooter would never have been able to obtain the weapon. Gun rights advocates argue that the shooter was mentally ill, that according to the Washington Post, he had been hospitalized and received mental health treatment this summer. In the end, the arguments for and against gun control aren t generally about the efficacy of any particular policy, at least not when it comes to mass shootings. Mass shootings are statistical outliers. Active shooter events constitute a very small percentage of overall homicides. While the media tends to cover large-scale mass shootings like the Lewiston shooting, they tend to ignore mass shootings in cities like Chicago, despite the fact that firearms homicide rate for black Americans is some 14 times higher than that for white Americans. That's because active shooter events are a rare exception, and while the media tend to focus on mass shootings, there is no single, solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturer. No single, single rationale, except profit, except for the one that exists in order to make money for gun manufacturers. None of that has any social redeeming value. None of it has any single, other than profit for it, except by making profits. except by selling you, the consumer. And they make no one needs a semi-automatic weapons, no one actually needs one, except you need one. The idea the idea we still allow a gun to protect yourself, except to fight against evil people who seek to do harm to do something other than you, other people do not need one, you need something more than a . . . except you, you don t need a gun. That s sick, right on principle, right? But is that sick, is it sick, or not sick, sick, just sick, and you don't need a weapon to protect you, right ? it's just sick or . . you need a shotgun? or a 12-gauge shotgun, not a single bullet to protect that s . a double-barrel shotgun?


Transcript

00:00:00.000 The mass shooter in Lewiston, Maine is still at large.
00:00:02.000 He has done extraordinary damage, 18 dead, 13 injured, lives ended, lives destroyed, families wrecked.
00:00:08.000 In America, such events quickly devolve into the usual arguments.
00:00:11.000 Those who argue for gun control blame the weapon carried by the shooter.
00:00:14.000 They point out that he was carrying an AR-15 and that he had a high-capacity magazine.
00:00:18.000 They say that Maine's gun laws are too loose and that if they had been tighter, the shooter never would have been able to obtain the weapon.
00:00:24.000 Gun rights advocates argue, by contrast, that the shooter was mentally ill, that according to the Washington Post, he had, quote, so alarmed people around him that he was hospitalized and received mental health treatment this summer.
00:00:34.000 People who knew the shooter told investigators that, quote, in recent months, he described hearing disturbed voices and had increasingly become fixated on the bowling alley and the restaurant where he allegedly opened fire.
00:00:44.000 It's unclear where the shooter got his weapon.
00:00:46.000 If he did not have a criminal record, a federal background check would not have stopped him from getting a weapon anyway.
00:00:51.000 But Maine also has a so-called yellow flag law that requires police to get a medical practitioner to evaluate someone with mental illness and identify them as a threat before the police can petition a judge to order a person's firearms seized.
00:01:03.000 If ever somebody would have qualified for use of such a law, the shooter in this case would have qualified.
00:01:09.000 In the end, the arguments for and against gun control aren't generally about the efficacy of any particular policy, at least not when it comes to mass shootings.
00:01:16.000 Mass shootings are statistical outliers.
00:01:17.000 The vast majority of homicides involving firearms in the United States are committed with handguns, not long guns.
00:01:23.000 Active shooter events constitute a very small percentage of overall homicides.
00:01:27.000 While the media tend to cover large-scale mass shootings like the Lewiston shooting, they tend to ignore mass shootings in cities like Chicago, despite the fact that firearms homicide rate for black Americans is some 14 times higher than that for white Americans.
00:01:38.000 Now, the arguments for gun control tend to centralize around one particular argument, the argument that no one, quote unquote, needs an AR-15 or any gun for that matter.
00:01:47.000 That's the argument that President Biden routinely makes.
00:01:51.000 For those brave right wing Americans who say it's all about keeping America, keeping America's independent and safe.
00:02:00.000 If you want to fight against the country, you need an F-15.
00:02:03.000 You need something a little more than a gun.
00:02:05.000 The idea The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick.
00:02:13.000 It's just sick.
00:02:15.000 It has no, no social redeeming value.
00:02:18.000 Zero.
00:02:18.000 None.
00:02:19.000 Not a single solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturer.
00:02:24.000 If you want to protect yourself, get a double barrel shotgun.
00:02:29.000 Have the shells of a 12-gauge shotgun.
00:02:31.000 I promise you, whoever's coming in is not going to... You don't need an AR-15.
00:02:36.000 It's harder to aim, it's harder to use, and in fact, you don't need 30 rounds to protect yourself.
00:02:43.000 Buy a shotgun!
00:02:46.000 None of that is true.
00:02:47.000 None of that is true.
00:02:48.000 Also, notice his language there.
00:02:50.000 When he says no one needs a semi-automatic weapon, that's like a normal handgun.
00:02:54.000 That is a normal rifle.
00:02:56.000 A semi-automatic weapon just means that every time you pull the trigger, the gun shoots.
00:03:00.000 That's all.
00:03:01.000 And then it reloads.
00:03:02.000 That's what a semi-auto is.
00:03:04.000 But is Biden right on principle?
00:03:06.000 I spent part of my day yesterday with my wife and some friends at a gun range.
00:03:09.000 While we were there, we worked with my Smith & Wesson M&P Shield 9mm, my Mossberg 500 shotgun, and yes, my AR-15.
00:03:15.000 Why, precisely, were we at the gun range?
00:03:17.000 Well, it's not because I love the gun range.
00:03:19.000 It's because, since the October 7th terror assault on the Gaza envelope, antisemitism across the West has skyrocketed.
00:03:25.000 I currently have full-time security on myself, on my family, probably going to have to have that level of security the rest of our lives.
00:03:31.000 But it's not just me.
00:03:33.000 Pretty much every Jew I know who can obtain a weapon is now attempting to do so.
00:03:37.000 And they should, as all law-abiding and responsible adults should.
00:03:41.000 Owning a weapon is, in the end, the only protection against the darkness.
00:03:44.000 The Jews who were murdered, raped, and kidnapped in the Gaza envelope were largely unarmed.
00:03:48.000 Israel has extremely strict gun control laws.
00:03:50.000 In the wake of the massacre, tens of thousands of Israelis are now seeking to arm themselves as they should.
00:03:55.000 Over 100,000 Israelis have reportedly submitted gun license applications.
00:03:58.000 Closer to home, the story is the same.
00:04:00.000 There are evil people who seek to do harm to innocent people.
00:04:04.000 On Wednesday morning, for example, a man was arrested in Studio City, California, after breaking into a home with a mezuzah, that is a scroll on the doorpost of Jewish homes, marking it as a Jewish home.
00:04:14.000 The man was screaming, free Palestine and kill Jews, and trying to kick in a door.
00:04:18.000 Now New York Jews are being told to stay indoors by security sources over Shabbat, because pro-Hamas protesters decided to descend on Brooklyn on Shabbat afternoon, according to colive.com.
00:04:28.000 Jews should avoid walking around Crown Heights, a heavily Orthodox neighborhood.
00:04:31.000 According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic incidents have increased by 388% this month, year over year.
00:04:38.000 Why wouldn't every Jew want to carry under these circumstances?
00:04:42.000 People of decency on all sides do want the same thing here.
00:04:45.000 Innocents protected, and the dangerous disarmed.
00:04:48.000 The question is, how best to achieve that goal?
00:04:50.000 Simple-minded statements about blanket weapons bans are not the answer, and those answers make even less sense, coming from many of the same people who see the police as the problem.
00:04:58.000 So no, I'm not going to be giving up my AR-15 because a mentally ill person who never should have had weapons committed a heinous act of evil.
00:05:05.000 In fact, that is precisely why I keep my weapons, because evil people doing evil things are not stopped by parchment barriers.
00:05:12.000 In just a second, we'll get to the political response to the mass shooting in Maine, which of course has followed all the traditional hallmarks of the debate.
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00:06:21.000 Okay, so as per our usual arrangement, These shootings, almost invariably, involve somebody with obvious red flags.
00:06:30.000 Like obvious, obvious red flags.
00:06:32.000 And then the media decides to ignore all the red flags in favor of the idea that a hundred million goners ought to give up their guns.
00:06:37.000 Because in the end, the idea is that you should trust the government to protect you.
00:06:40.000 Now, I don't trust the government for a couple of reasons.
00:06:42.000 One, I don't think that they can protect me in the first instance.
00:06:45.000 So where I live, great sheriff's department, excellent police department.
00:06:48.000 Everybody, law enforcement is excellent.
00:06:49.000 And you know what?
00:06:50.000 It's going to take them a little while to respond to an actual bad thing happening.
00:06:55.000 It doesn't matter how good they are.
00:06:57.000 It will take them, at the very least, a few minutes to get to a place.
00:07:00.000 And that is too late for the people who are in that place.
00:07:04.000 And this is all very speculative until it happens in a place where you are.
00:07:08.000 Which is why, at my synagogue, half the guys are carrying.
00:07:11.000 We have security and we have half the guys carrying.
00:07:14.000 That is a good thing.
00:07:16.000 That is a worthwhile thing.
00:07:17.000 Whenever somebody says, well, good guys with guns don't stop bad guys with guns.
00:07:20.000 No, the answer is they do.
00:07:22.000 It's always such a weird argument.
00:07:23.000 They'll say things like, well, you know what really stops the bad guy with the gun is either he commits suicide or the cops stop him.
00:07:29.000 You know why that is?
00:07:30.000 Because there was no one on scene who had a gun.
00:07:32.000 So they had to wait until a guy was done shooting a bunch of people for the cops to get there and shoot the guy.
00:07:36.000 Or, what, are you going to wait there for the guy to commit suicide?
00:07:38.000 Like, out of the kindness of his heart, you think that that's what's going to stop this thing?
00:07:42.000 The reality is, once again, that every one of these situations involving a mass shooter is a situation in which the person has all sorts of indicators that they should not have had a gun in the first place and somebody dropped the ball somewhere along the way, which really speaks to a lack of belief In the actual social fabric.
00:08:02.000 Because if you see somebody around you who should not have a gun, somebody around you who has severe mental illness, you have an obligation, a moral obligation, to report that to the authorities and the authorities have a moral obligation to try to get that person the care they need and remove from them the ability to have access to a weapon.
00:08:19.000 That is your moral obligation.
00:08:20.000 It is a thing that you should do.
00:08:23.000 By the same token, it is immoral to remove from a law-abiding citizen who knows how to use a gun his means of self-defense.
00:08:29.000 That is immoral.
00:08:30.000 The first right any of us have is the right to self-defense and defense of others, obviously.
00:08:36.000 Well, whenever one of these shootings happens, obviously emotions run really high, and you see some politicians who decide that they're going to shift their opinions on the political issue, not because new evidence has emerged, but because they are now emotionally struck by the issue.
00:08:49.000 I'm not a big fan of this type of politics.
00:08:52.000 If your position's changed radically, not because new evidence emerged that debunked your prior position, but because you are just responding more emotionally to the issue, that's not a good reason to shift your opinion on an issue.
00:09:04.000 It isn't.
00:09:04.000 Evidence is supposed to decide your positions on the issues.
00:09:08.000 Well, there was a congressperson yesterday named Jerry Golden, Democrat from Maine, who reversed course on gun control.
00:09:13.000 Now, Maine is a Democrat-dominated state.
00:09:15.000 It has a Democratic governor, it has one Democratic senator, one Republican senator, and it has a Democratic legislature.
00:09:22.000 So, here is Jared Golden, who is a main congressperson, who represents Lewiston, now coming out in favor of gun control, which is a politically safe thing to do after a mass shooting, obviously.
00:09:33.000 But again, there's no new evidence that's been provided that this would've, that, what form of gun control would've stopped this from happening?
00:09:37.000 Seriously, what form of gun control?
00:09:39.000 Guy apparently already had guns, we don't know how he obtained the guns, and we do know that he was literally institutionalized just a couple of months ago, and somehow still had access to the weapons.
00:09:47.000 What laws on the books would've changed this?
00:09:49.000 Here's Jared Golden, advocating for moral laws anyway.
00:09:53.000 The time has now come for me to take responsibility for this failure, which is why I now call on the United States Congress to ban assault rifles like the one used by the sick perpetrator of this mass killing in my hometown of Lewiston, Maine.
00:10:08.000 For the good of my community, I will work with any colleague to get this done in the time that I have left in Congress.
00:10:17.000 I don't really understand why he's saying it's his responsibility.
00:10:20.000 What is the law that he failed to pass that would have prevented this?
00:10:23.000 Chris Murphy of Connecticut.
00:10:25.000 Senator, long time advocate for gun control.
00:10:28.000 He then actually stomped on this guy.
00:10:30.000 Because that's also the way politics works.
00:10:32.000 Even if you reverse position, then the people who reflect your new position will stomp on you.
00:10:36.000 Here's Chris Murphy going after him yesterday.
00:10:38.000 I don't know Representative Golden personally.
00:10:40.000 I know that he's a pretty conservative member of the House of Representatives, and he's coming to the same reality that many others have, which is that these weapons don't deserve to be on the streets of America.
00:10:53.000 You can protect people's Second Amendment rights, but just make sure that folks don't have access to the weapons of war.
00:10:59.000 But I wish it didn't take members of Congress To have to experience a mass shooting in their own congressional district to come to this reality.
00:11:07.000 I'm glad that Representative Golden has made this decision, but why does it have to happen over and over and over again?
00:11:16.000 I mean, does he have a solution that would stop this from happening over and over and over again?
00:11:21.000 There's some 50 people who were shot in Chicago over the weekend.
00:11:24.000 No big news story about it because it's not as spectacular.
00:11:26.000 It doesn't grab the headlines in the same way.
00:11:29.000 Those were almost invariably with handguns.
00:11:31.000 You don't see Chris Murphy talking about any of that.
00:11:33.000 And again, this is the easy liar's way out of the dilemma.
00:11:37.000 The real argument that people on the left, if they are honest, want to have is that no one should have a gun.
00:11:41.000 That's the argument that they really want to have.
00:11:42.000 They don't want to make that argument because they understand that it's a losing argument.
00:11:45.000 But that is the argument that they actually do want to make.
00:11:48.000 So instead, they decide that they are going to sort of reverse engineer an argument where the greatest danger to your life today is an AR-15.
00:11:55.000 Well, if the greatest danger to my life is an AR-15 in the hands of a crazy person, you know what the greatest defense to my life is?
00:12:01.000 An AR-15 in my hand so I can stop the crazy person.
00:12:05.000 Senator Tim Kaine, he's doing the same sort of thing from Virginia.
00:12:08.000 He says, we have a sickness in this country.
00:12:09.000 It doesn't happen anywhere else.
00:12:10.000 We have a sickness in this country.
00:12:11.000 First of all, it's not true.
00:12:12.000 It doesn't happen anywhere else.
00:12:13.000 There are mass shootings.
00:12:14.000 There are terror assaults.
00:12:15.000 This sort of stuff does happen in other countries.
00:12:16.000 But if there is a sickness in this country, part of that sickness involves denying sickness, denying mental illness, pretending that mental illness is just different brain orientation, as opposed to what it really is in many cases, a danger to self or others.
00:12:31.000 Here is Senator Kaine.
00:12:33.000 Anything like this just reopens a wound that never heals for all Virginians.
00:12:38.000 When we see a report of this kind of shooting tragedy, we all remember that tragedy at Virginia Tech and so many since then.
00:12:46.000 And it just sickens your soul.
00:12:49.000 I mean, we have a sickness in this country around gun violence.
00:12:52.000 And it's a uniquely American problem.
00:12:54.000 Many other nations don't have the problem that we have.
00:12:59.000 States, including Virginia, have finally taken meaningful steps to deal with it, but Congress thus far has generally been unwilling to.
00:13:10.000 Again, many of these mass shootings have occurred in California, which has extraordinarily strong gun laws.
00:13:14.000 I used to live there.
00:13:16.000 Meanwhile, Karine Jean-Pierre on the federal level, she's doing the same thing.
00:13:18.000 She says, let's work to ban assault weapons.
00:13:20.000 Again, the weapon is not the problem.
00:13:23.000 The person who's carrying the weapon is the problem.
00:13:25.000 Everyone knows this.
00:13:27.000 Let's work together to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
00:13:32.000 Let's work together to enact universal background checks, require safe storage of guns, and keep guns out of the hands of criminals and dangerous individuals who have no business being armed with a weapon of war.
00:13:46.000 Okay, but those people have no business being armed at all!
00:13:51.000 At all!
00:13:52.000 The weapon is not the... The person, as always, is the issue.
00:13:56.000 And again, there is a counterside to this, which is that law-abiding people who are legitimately afraid and should be legitimately afraid of bad people in the night need to own weapons.
00:14:06.000 I am one of those people.
00:14:07.000 My wife is one of those people.
00:14:08.000 My wife is, by nature, a very gentle person.
00:14:11.000 She is not somebody who's particularly comfortable around firearms.
00:14:14.000 She's learning to use a firearm.
00:14:15.000 She's buying a firearm because she wants to be more comfortable so she feels safer.
00:14:18.000 And she is not wrong.
00:14:20.000 We get a lot of threats.
00:14:21.000 She's not wrong.
00:14:21.000 We'll get to more on this momentarily first.
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00:15:25.000 So again, the case that very often is just made pretty openly by members of the left is that we don't like guns, guns are bad.
00:15:34.000 Or that no one needs a gun.
00:15:36.000 That is the case made by a person named Tyler Austin Harper over at The Atlantic today.
00:15:41.000 The title of the piece is How Much Blood Is Your Fun Worth?
00:15:44.000 I saw the gun violence epidemic and my relation to it as a gun owner as an abstraction.
00:15:48.000 Then a mass shooting happened in the little city where I work.
00:15:50.000 This is a person who is from Lewiston, Maine.
00:15:53.000 The entire article is about how this person is a gun owner and how he was always in favor of gun control, but now he's really strongly in favor of gun control.
00:16:01.000 choices, the honest truth is that I've always viewed the gun violence epidemic
00:16:04.000 as an abstraction remote from my own life choices. Like many gun owners, I had
00:16:07.000 always supported stronger gun control. If it requires written and practical exams
00:16:10.000 and dozens of hours of training to earn the right to drive a motor vehicle, I've
00:16:13.000 never understood why the same it should not apply to firearms. But my views on gun
00:16:16.000 control have also been wonkish, academic in nature.
00:16:18.000 It's something I care about and have written about but have never felt deeply.
00:16:21.000 That changed yesterday.
00:16:22.000 Okay, so he has stronger feelings right now.
00:16:24.000 And then he gets to this.
00:16:25.000 If you had asked me before yesterday why I own guns, I would have fed you the same line I'd fed my liberal friends and my wife, and above all, myself, for years.
00:16:31.000 I would have told you I own guns for hunting, for protection, for blasting clay pigeons out of cloudless October skies.
00:16:36.000 I have told you I own guns because I come from a gun family, and guns are some of the only things I have left from the people I love.
00:16:41.000 I would have told you about the rifle my holler-born, Great Depression-surviving grandmother kept under the bed, the 20-gauge my grandfather used to bring home at Thanksgiving turkeys.
00:16:48.000 I would have told you I own guns because I'm a hunter, and I own guns because I write things that sometimes make people angry.
00:16:53.000 But it is only now that gun violence has visited my little corner of the world that I have been forced to confront reality, a truth that has been there all along but that I have refused to admit.
00:17:01.000 I own guns because I like them, and because I'm an American, and I'm allowed to, and no one stops me.
00:17:05.000 I own guns because gun violence was something that happened anywhere else and not somewhere close to me.
00:17:12.000 He says that he is responsible.
00:17:13.000 And he says yesterday's events haven't made me change my mind about being a gun owner.
00:17:17.000 The reasons that motivated me to own guns in the first place are no different than yesterday.
00:17:21.000 The shooting in Lewiston changed my mind about being a quiet gun owner.
00:17:24.000 I've spent years of my life making apologies on behalf of my gun nut acquaintances.
00:17:28.000 So I just have a question.
00:17:29.000 He's not giving up his guns.
00:17:31.000 Right?
00:17:31.000 I mean, in the end, this guy is not going to give up his guns, but he is going to lecture you about your guns.
00:17:36.000 That is the idea here.
00:17:38.000 He says the reason that people own AR-15s is because they are fun or because they are a toy.
00:17:43.000 For some people, maybe that's true.
00:17:45.000 But here's the bottom line.
00:17:46.000 I have a right to own an AR-15.
00:17:48.000 My reason happens to be a pretty good reason, which is self-defense and defense of others.
00:17:53.000 But that right is broader than that.
00:17:55.000 And the reason it's broader than that is because I can't prove to the authorities that my need outweighs their need to take away my gun.
00:18:02.000 I know this because I know this for a fact.
00:18:04.000 When I lived in Los Angeles, I was one of the top targets of anti-Semitic death threats in 2015, 2016.
00:18:11.000 I used to get death threats all the time.
00:18:14.000 I knew fairly intimately the people at the FBI in Los Angeles because they'd been to my house more than once in order to pick up, at least one time, powder from my house.
00:18:23.000 Other times to investigate other mail that had come to the house.
00:18:26.000 I know the FBI agents where I live here too.
00:18:29.000 But the difference is that in Florida, I can get my gun, I can go out, I can train with it, I can get good at it, And I can carry it because it turns out that the threat is not just to me and my home.
00:18:39.000 When I was in Los Angeles, let me tell you the process that I had to go through.
00:18:42.000 This is why the right is broader than just my need because it turns out that when the authorities define the need, very often it just obliterates the right.
00:18:47.000 When I was in Los Angeles, I literally went to the LAPD and I applied for a concealed carry permit.
00:18:52.000 Concealed carry permits in Los Angeles are almost impossible to get.
00:18:55.000 Really, really difficult to get.
00:18:56.000 You have to demonstrate a need.
00:18:58.000 What does that mean?
00:18:59.000 It means you have to demonstrate a need that is beyond the response time of the LAPD.
00:19:04.000 So, I set up a meeting with LAPD.
00:19:07.000 I go in.
00:19:07.000 I bring in a binder.
00:19:08.000 I'm talking a binder this thick of death threats.
00:19:10.000 A thick binder of death threats.
00:19:12.000 I sit down with somebody working for the LAPD and I start walking through the death threats.
00:19:16.000 They say, okay, we'll get back to you.
00:19:18.000 A couple weeks later, they deny me the permit.
00:19:20.000 Why?
00:19:21.000 Because they say, That all those death threats, well, they haven't actually acted on them yet.
00:19:25.000 And I said, right, that's the entire point.
00:19:27.000 They have not.
00:19:28.000 But when they do, I want to be ready.
00:19:29.000 In fact, I pointed out to them that the FBI had arrested a person who was sending death threats to me and Donald Trump Jr., among other people.
00:19:36.000 They'd arrested that person.
00:19:37.000 That person had a picture of Mein Kampf in their home.
00:19:39.000 That person had body armor and a map of the general area where we lived.
00:19:43.000 And he was pretty much ready to go.
00:19:45.000 And the LAPD said, yes, but he was arrested.
00:19:48.000 Which is a full catch-22.
00:19:49.000 We catch the guy, that means you're safe.
00:19:52.000 We don't catch the guy, well, you shouldn't have a gun because, after all, we could have caught the guy.
00:19:57.000 This is why the Second Amendment exists.
00:20:00.000 And in an increasingly violent world, particularly for people like me, you wanna talk about things getting personal?
00:20:05.000 Gun ownership is personal to me.
00:20:07.000 This person says gun violence is personal to him because it racked the community where he lived.
00:20:11.000 Because gun violence is personal, because violence and threats are personal, gun ownership is personal to me.
00:20:15.000 And I don't believe I'm the only one in America who feels that way.
00:20:17.000 I think the founders felt the same thing.
00:20:19.000 In just one second, we'll get to why it's so personal right now.
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00:21:25.000 So, when I talk about the threats and the reason that we own guns, the reason why everybody in my neighborhood who didn't already own a gun has bought a gun, why people are buying additional guns, why everybody's getting trained.
00:21:34.000 Jon Podhoretz has a piece in the New York Post talking about the situation in New York.
00:21:38.000 Quote, a pro-Palestinian protest is scheduled for 3 p.m.
00:21:41.000 Saturday in front of the Brooklyn Museum.
00:21:43.000 That's a mile from 770 Eastern Parkway, the headquarters of the largest ultra-Orthodox
00:21:47.000 sect in the world, the Lubavitch Hasidim. Roughly 20,000 observant Jews live around
00:21:51.000 770 in the neighborhood called Crown Heights. Jews should definitely avoid the area,
00:21:55.000 says an Orthodox site called COL Live.
00:21:59.000 They say a security source told them, quote, there's no intel at this time in which direction the protest will lead.
00:22:03.000 Locals should definitely stay away from Eastern Parkway in that area.
00:22:06.000 The Jews of Brooklyn feel they are at risk and obviously they feel that they cannot be protected.
00:22:11.000 That is not a shock either, considering what has happened over the course of the past week or so.
00:22:16.000 We saw a bunch of students at Cooper Union in Greenwich Village who were barricaded inside the library as a bunch of pro-Hamas protesters were outside banging on the doors.
00:22:25.000 You've seen this sort of stuff, this sort of threatening stuff happening routinely around the nation, unfortunately.
00:22:31.000 In Tulane yesterday, Tulane University in New Orleans, which is a lot of Jews go to Tulane, including my old friend Andrew Breitbart went to Tulane.
00:22:39.000 At Tulane, violence broke out.
00:22:41.000 It broke out because somebody decided to basically dress up like a terrorist and then drive through the campus.
00:22:46.000 There's a person who decided to wear the keffiyeh around the face, looking as though they are a terror threat, and then attempted to start burning an Israeli flag.
00:22:53.000 And a Jewish student presumably tried to take the Israeli flag away from him and got beaten up by the crowd.
00:22:57.000 Here's what that looked like.
00:22:59.000 You can see the, for those who can't watch video, you're seeing, you can see the part
00:23:11.000 where this guy drove up looking like a terrorist, but he drove up looking like something directly
00:23:15.000 out of the Gaza Strip and tried to burn an Israeli flag.
00:23:18.000 Somebody tried to stop him, and then this student ended up having to go to the hospital.
00:23:25.000 We've been seeing these massive marches all over the United States in favor of Hamas.
00:23:28.000 If that doesn't scare the hell out of Jews, I'm not sure exactly what will.
00:23:31.000 It doesn't mean the Jews are going to become shy about it.
00:23:33.000 Certainly, I haven't become shy about it.
00:23:35.000 But it does mean that things are pretty scary out there and everybody is taking precautions.
00:23:39.000 Meanwhile, the good news is that the hard left is coming to the defense of Hamas.
00:23:42.000 Harvard has now created a task force to support students experiencing doxing, harassment, and online security issues following backlash against students allegedly affiliated with a statement that held Israel entirely responsible for violence in the Israel-Hamas conflict.
00:23:56.000 The new task force will be in operation until November 3rd.
00:23:59.000 So, basically, there are a bunch of students who decided to sign a statement in favor of Hamas.
00:24:04.000 There's a truck that went around Harvard with their faces on it, showing exactly who had signed this.
00:24:09.000 And Harvard, to make sure that everybody's feelings are protected, they created an entire task force to help the students who signed a statement in favor of Hamas.
00:24:20.000 According to an email, the Dean of Students Office will lead the task force alongside the Harvard University Information Technology, Harvard University PD, Counseling and Mental Health Service, Office of General Counsel, Mignon Center for Career Services, Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowship, and the Office of Undergraduate Education.
00:24:36.000 So that's very encouraging stuff.
00:24:41.000 Jews are being threatened all over the world, but we've got to make sure that the people who join the threats, those are the people who are protected.
00:24:49.000 On Monday, the so-called PSC, the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee, posted a letter from alumni to Harvard administration on their Instagram page, saying, quote, And then they call for Harvard to make an apology.
00:25:01.000 this writing the Harvard administration has yet to meaningfully criticize or
00:25:03.000 condemn the public doxing campaigns threatening students primarily targeting
00:25:07.000 marginalized students who are Palestinian, black, Arab, South Asian, Muslim,
00:25:10.000 undocumented and or international and then they call for Harvard to make an
00:25:13.000 apology so instead they set up a task force in favor of these folks. Yes it is
00:25:17.000 indeed a threatening time.
00:25:19.000 Meanwhile, sitting members of Congress with links to Hamas continue to defend their radical Jew hatred.
00:25:26.000 So, Rashida Tlaib yesterday She was hit with a censor resolution sponsored by Marjorie Taylor Greene.
00:25:32.000 Obviously, she should be censored.
00:25:33.000 The truth is, she should be expelled, considering her support for terrorist organizations.
00:25:37.000 But she released a statement, quote, Marjorie Taylor Greene's unhinged resolution is deeply Islamophobic and attacks peaceful Jewish anti-war advocates.
00:25:44.000 I am proud to stand in solidarity with Jewish peace advocates calling for a ceasefire and an end to the violence.
00:25:48.000 Okay, by Jewish peace advocates, she means radical left-wingers who wear their titular Judaism as a badge to protect them from the fact that they are standing for Hamas.
00:25:57.000 She says, I will not be bullied.
00:25:58.000 I will not be dehumanized.
00:25:59.000 I will not be silenced.
00:26:00.000 I will continue to call for ceasefire, for the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid, for the release of hostages and those arbitrarily detained, and for every American to be brought home.
00:26:07.000 I will continue to work for a just and lasting peace.
00:26:10.000 Yada, yada, yada.
00:26:10.000 Okay, she is a liar, obviously.
00:26:12.000 Not only is she a liar, she continues to maintain that Israel hit that hospital.
00:26:17.000 She's never gonna forgive Israel, as they say online, for not hitting the hospital.
00:26:20.000 Ilhan Omar immediately came out in support of Rashida Tlaib, quote, Asterisk of Hamas.
00:26:29.000 She shows humanity to colleagues who constantly dehumanize her and those who share our faith.
00:26:33.000 Yeah, if there's one person who shows humanity to others, it's Rashida Tlaib.
00:26:36.000 She loves the people.
00:26:37.000 She represents regardless of who they are.
00:26:38.000 Well, I mean, I assume she does love Hamas fans, because she definitely represents them well.
00:26:43.000 I am my sister's keeper, says Ilhan Omar.
00:26:45.000 I will walk through fire for her.
00:26:46.000 I admire her leadership and conviction.
00:26:47.000 People can harass or try to censure her.
00:26:49.000 She will never be forced into submission.
00:26:51.000 None of us will.
00:26:53.000 Oh, such heroism.
00:26:54.000 Meanwhile, Ayanna Pressley.
00:26:56.000 Another adjunct member of the squad, the Ringo star of the squad, she also put out a statement saying Rashida Tlaib is doing what her district elected her to do, advocate for a better, safer, more just world by lying repeatedly about Israel and being a radical anti-Semite, of course.
00:27:09.000 Now, here's the thing.
00:27:09.000 Rashida Tlaib has alleged links to the Hamas terror organization.
00:27:13.000 According to Canary Mission, they put out a report just this week pointing out that Tlaib has extensive funds tied to the Hamas terrorist group.
00:27:21.000 The group says that Tlaib used her Facebook group, PAC-USA, Palestinian American Congress USA, for her congressional campaign.
00:27:28.000 That group shared pro-terrorism, anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda content.
00:27:31.000 It had 12,000 members in June 2020.
00:27:32.000 She also hired the founder of the group as chairman of her campaign's finance committee.
00:27:37.000 That person is said to have enabled the founder to promote 12 fundraisers across eight states.
00:27:41.000 Additionally, according to Canary Mission, Tlaib founded the group Black for Palestine, an organization they describe as the anti-American, anti-Israel, pro-terror hate group.
00:27:49.000 The group allegedly works alongside the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is a foreign terrorist organization in the United States.
00:27:55.000 That group has apparently posted in support of registered terrorist organizations more than 100 times.
00:28:01.000 Tlaib has links to at least three Hamas-linked activists, whom she employed to fundraise for her 2018 election campaign.
00:28:06.000 Those would be Salah Sarsour, Rafik Jaber, and Abdelbaset Hamayel.
00:28:10.000 Sarsour is actually jailed for being connected with Hamas in 1995.
00:28:13.000 She co-hosted an event with Tlaib in 2018.
00:28:16.000 Jaber has apparently admitted to helping distribute Hamas' propaganda in the United States.
00:28:20.000 In 2003, he testified he directed two Hamas front groups to promote the Holy Land Foundation in every way we can and admitting to distributing, quote, pro-martyrdom materials that celebrated the killing of Jews.
00:28:30.000 Khamayel has worked for multiple Hamas-linked organizations in the United States.
00:28:35.000 So that is Rashida Tlaib, your sitting Congresswoman.
00:28:38.000 And meanwhile, the Biden administration is attempting to grasp its way forward with regard to the situation in the Middle East.
00:28:46.000 Again, they're sending some mixed signals.
00:28:47.000 Some of those signals are very good.
00:28:48.000 Some of those signals are less good.
00:28:51.000 So John Kirby yesterday, to his credit, the national security spokesperson, to his credit, yesterday he was asked about casualty numbers in the Gaza Strip.
00:28:58.000 And he gave one of the strongest answers actually I've ever seen anyone, Republican or Democrat, give from the podium on the lies told by Hamas and its allies.
00:29:07.000 The president went further to say that innocents will die and that this is the price of the war.
00:29:12.000 You also said that.
00:29:13.000 I have indeed.
00:29:14.000 Don't you think this is insensitive?
00:29:16.000 There have been very harsh criticisms about it.
00:29:19.000 For example, the Council of American Islamic Relations said it was deeply disturbed and called on the president to apologize.
00:29:27.000 Would the president apologize and does he regret saying something like that?
00:29:30.000 No.
00:29:31.000 What's harsh?
00:29:32.000 What's harsh?
00:29:33.000 is the way Hamas is using people as human shields.
00:29:36.000 What's harsh is taking a couple of hundred hostages and leaving families anxious, waiting and worrying to figure out where their loved ones are.
00:29:43.000 What's harsh is dropping in on a music festival and slaughtering a bunch of young people just trying to enjoy an afternoon.
00:29:50.000 I could go on and on.
00:29:51.000 That's what's harsh.
00:29:53.000 That is what's harsh.
00:29:56.000 He happens to be correct about all of that.
00:29:58.000 And yet, at the same time, the media continue to parrot the lies that Hamas tells.
00:30:03.000 And they are liars.
00:30:03.000 I mean, it is amazing.
00:30:04.000 It is truly amazing to watch the PR battle that has erupted on social media.
00:30:08.000 First of all, there's no question that, algorithmically, Hamas supporters are getting a giant boost right now.
00:30:13.000 There's just no question that that's happening on a wide variety of platforms.
00:30:17.000 Unfortunately, I think including X, but certainly including TikTok.
00:30:21.000 Beyond that, Hamas, I mean, they just openly lie about things, so much so that yesterday, a Hamas spokesperson was on the BBC.
00:30:28.000 The BBC, of course, is a Hamas-friendly outlet.
00:30:30.000 They're perfectly willing to run with nearly anything Hamas says.
00:30:33.000 But even the BBC was like, um, what?
00:30:35.000 So here's what happened.
00:30:36.000 The Hamas spokesperson tries to claim that they didn't kill civilians.
00:30:40.000 The BBC points out, um, you did, you killed 1,500 civilians.
00:30:44.000 And the Hamas guy gets up and walks out.
00:30:47.000 It was a military operation.
00:30:48.000 It was directed for military purposes.
00:30:52.000 For the military sites.
00:30:53.000 Hundreds of civilians were killed.
00:30:54.000 Sorry.
00:30:55.000 And for the military soldiers who imposed sanctions and collective punishment against our people.
00:31:02.000 And I think from the first moment we declared that this operation was not directed to the civilians.
00:31:08.000 But I can ...confirmed and assured again and again that there was no command to kill any civilians.
00:31:16.000 How do you justify killing people as they sleep, you know, families?
00:31:23.000 How do you justify killing hundreds of people?
00:31:27.000 I want to stop this interview.
00:31:31.000 Of course he wants to stop the interview, because that's the most obvious question in the entire world.
00:31:34.000 By the way, they found materials literally on the bodies of Hamas terrorists, telling them to rape, telling them to murder.
00:31:39.000 I mean, this is like, they're liars, they're liars.
00:31:41.000 And the fact there's so many people who are willing to parrot the lies is the full-scale anti-Semitism.
00:31:45.000 So, at the same exact time that these lies are being told, the Biden administration, again, there's a lot of mixed signals.
00:31:52.000 Joe Biden is meeting with American Muslim leaders to try to placate their fury over the Gaza war.
00:31:57.000 That is according to the Times of Israel.
00:31:59.000 He held an unpublicized meeting with Muslim American community leaders.
00:32:03.000 The move comes amid growing fury among Arab and Muslim Americans over Biden's support for
00:32:06.000 Israel's military response to the Hamas onslaught.
00:32:09.000 The president came under particular fire yesterday for saying he has no confidence
00:32:12.000 in the death tally from Hamas.
00:32:13.000 Okay, the fact that Biden is meeting with all of these supposedly angry leaders is totally crazy.
00:32:21.000 If you're angry about Israel responding to Hamas, I have a solution for you.
00:32:24.000 Call for Hamas to surrender.
00:32:25.000 Hamas surrenders, it's over today.
00:32:26.000 Today.
00:32:27.000 It all ends right now.
00:32:28.000 All Hamas' leadership have to do, come out with your hands up.
00:32:30.000 That's all.
00:32:31.000 And then this is all over.
00:32:33.000 The hostages go free.
00:32:34.000 The electricity gets turned back on.
00:32:36.000 That's the next thing that happens.
00:32:38.000 Everyone knows this.
00:32:39.000 But instead, Joe Biden is meeting with these American Muslim leaders, and he's also promulgating, again, the entire left continues to promulgate the lie that the only way out of this in the end is going to be a two-state solution, that there are actually millions in the West Bank, in Gaza Strip, in Judea and Samaria, that there are millions of Palestinians who are just itching for peace, that every government they've ever had actually has betrayed them, every single one of them.
00:33:01.000 Which is a weird take because, you know, we have tape from places like Ramallah.
00:33:04.000 Here is a protest yesterday in Ramallah.
00:33:06.000 Ramallah is in the West Bank.
00:33:08.000 Ramallah is not in the Gaza Strip.
00:33:09.000 It is the capital of the Palestinian Authority.
00:33:11.000 There was a massive protest yesterday in Ramallah.
00:33:13.000 You can see it's all young men.
00:33:16.000 Literally all young men.
00:33:17.000 Zero females.
00:33:18.000 All young men.
00:33:19.000 And they are chanting, quote, if you have a rifle, you should either kill a Jew or give it to Hamas.
00:33:27.000 That's what they're chanting in Arabic.
00:33:30.000 If you have a rifle, you should either kill a Jew or give it to Hamas.
00:33:33.000 These are the so-called peace partners.
00:33:36.000 The West can keep lying to itself, but they are, in fact, lying.
00:33:39.000 In action, the West is going to have to respond.
00:33:42.000 In action, the West is going to have to respond because, again, you can pretend it away, but then reality hits you square in the face.
00:33:47.000 That's what's happening to the Biden administration with regard to Iran right now.
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00:34:53.000 Also, for literally years at this point, you've been asking me, one big question I get is, how do I educate my kids?
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00:35:47.000 Okay, meanwhile, the United States, again, they continue, the Biden administration continues to play this dumb double game where they pretend a thing that is happening is not happening.
00:35:56.000 So yesterday, the Biden administration, for some unknown reason, decided to allow the Iranian foreign minister to arrive on American shores and then threaten the United States from the United Nations.
00:36:04.000 An institution that should go the way of the dodo bird.
00:36:06.000 We should blow up the building.
00:36:07.000 We should salt the earth.
00:36:08.000 The UN is a garbage organization.
00:36:10.000 It's been a garbage organization for decades.
00:36:11.000 It's a mouthpiece for third world dictatorships.
00:36:14.000 In any case, Here was Iran's foreign minister yesterday warning the United States that if Israel goes into the Gaza Strip, the fire will spread.
00:36:20.000 Well, by the way, if they really want to threaten the United States, listen, we don't want war with Iran because it costs time and resources and money and people.
00:36:26.000 We don't want any of that.
00:36:28.000 But let's just be clear about this.
00:36:29.000 If Iran started up with the United States, that war would be over in about a millisecond.
00:36:33.000 The United States military is not to be trifled with and the fact that you have these tinpot morons who are out there threatening the United States is deeply insulting and speaks to the weakness that they perceive in the American body politic and among our political class.
00:36:44.000 Here's Iran's foreign minister.
00:36:47.000 Today in New York and the United Nations, I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are now managing the genocide in Palestine that we do not welcome to expansion of the war in the region.
00:37:07.000 But, I warn, if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire.
00:37:17.000 It is our home, and West Asia is our region.
00:37:24.000 West Asia is their region.
00:37:25.000 They own it.
00:37:26.000 Leave it alone.
00:37:28.000 By that, they mean presumably they also want the destruction of the state of Israel.
00:37:31.000 Well, as it turns out, Iran has now been targeting Americans throughout the Middle East.
00:37:37.000 In fact, over the course of the last few weeks, there have been double-digit strikes on American facilities by Iranian proxy groups.
00:37:44.000 John Kirby was asked about that yesterday.
00:37:46.000 He said, how exactly is Joe Biden pushing back on Iran?
00:37:48.000 First, Kirby admitted that U.S.
00:37:50.000 troops have actually sustained serious brain damage from these particular strikes.
00:37:54.000 Here he was yesterday admitting the situation.
00:37:57.000 The president said that if Iran or its proxies attacked U.S.
00:38:01.000 troops that we would respond.
00:38:03.000 What is he waiting for exactly?
00:38:04.000 He did say that.
00:38:05.000 Where's the response?
00:38:07.000 He said that.
00:38:09.000 And he said that we will... Repeating the warning is the response?
00:38:13.000 Jack, come on now.
00:38:14.000 It's not a question.
00:38:16.000 I'm not going to telegraph punches here from the podium.
00:38:19.000 We have responded and retaliated in the past, quite aggressively.
00:38:23.000 In fact, back in March, and as the President said, we will not hesitate to protect our troops and our facilities, but we're going to do it at a time of our choosing and a manner of our choosing.
00:38:34.000 And the decision to do it, if we do it, is his as Commander-in-Chief and his alone.
00:38:40.000 Okay, so what exactly is that response?
00:38:42.000 Well, yesterday we found out a little bit.
00:38:43.000 The U.S.
00:38:43.000 carried out airstrikes, according to CNN, targeting two facilities linked to Iranian-backed militias in eastern Syria on Thursday, according to a statement from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
00:38:52.000 Following a series of drone and rocket attacks against U.S.
00:38:54.000 forces in the region, the statement said the facilities have been used by the IRCG, that would be the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard, and affiliated groups.
00:39:02.000 The strikes were carried out by a pair of F-16 fighter jets using precision-guided munitions.
00:39:06.000 They targeted a weapons and ammo storage facility in Abu Kamal near the border between Syria and Iraq.
00:39:12.000 Now, Austin is attempting to downplay the conflict because he doesn't want to be drawn into an open conflict here that would cost, as we say, time, money, and blood.
00:39:19.000 Austin described the strikes as narrowly tailored in self-defense.
00:39:22.000 He said they were different from the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which, of course, is a lie.
00:39:25.000 I mean, what's happening right now is that Iran is prodding at Americans in an attempt to get America to tell Israel to stop in the Gaza Strip, which is not going to happen.
00:39:33.000 He directly accused Iran, then, of having a role in the attacks on U.S.
00:39:36.000 U.S. forces and quote, Iran wants to hide its hand and deny its roles in these attacks against
00:39:39.000 our forces.
00:39:40.000 We will not let them.
00:39:42.000 So again, the Biden administration overall doing the right thing, pushing Iran off the
00:39:46.000 ball, telling them do not do not screw.
00:39:49.000 But when the rubber is going to meet the road, that's going to be if Israel goes into Gaza, which presumably will happen over the course of the next week or so by all available information.
00:39:57.000 When Israel goes into the Gaza Strip, if Hezbollah opens up a second front on the Israeli border, will the United States stop Hezbollah from doing that?
00:40:05.000 Because Hezbollah is an existential danger to the state of Israel.
00:40:09.000 It's not just that they have 200,000 rockets pointed at various sites around Israel, threatening tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Israeli lives.
00:40:17.000 They also have terror tunnels that presumably strike into Israel as well.
00:40:21.000 They have sleeper cells that they've been working with in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank.
00:40:26.000 If the United States wishes to keep that conflict contained, the United States is going to have to get directly involved, probably, at that point.
00:40:32.000 Because if they don't, then Israel is going to go whole hog.
00:40:34.000 It's either going to be the United States containing the thing, or it's going to be Israel just devastating its opposition and maybe bringing in Iran, which then may go regional.
00:40:41.000 That right there is the biggest problem.
00:40:44.000 So, the Biden administration needs to continue to demonstrate a stiff upper lip and a stiff spine.
00:40:49.000 If they do, this thing will remain contained, which is in the best interest, certainly, of the United States.
00:40:54.000 And meanwhile, Mike Johnson is the new Speaker of the House.
00:40:59.000 Democrats are moving to try to undercut him as Speaker, suggesting that he is an extremist, of course.
00:41:05.000 This is their next move.
00:41:05.000 I think they're gonna have a tough time with this because Mike Johnson is a very personable fellow.
00:41:09.000 Jamie Raskin, Democrat from Maryland, he is now accusing Johnson of opposing democracy and suggesting at the same time he wants to ban the regulatory state.
00:41:16.000 By the way, those two things are in conflict.
00:41:18.000 Banning the regulatory state means, in a republic, it means upholding democracy.
00:41:23.000 The regulatory state is not elected, it is appointed.
00:41:25.000 So, he doesn't even understand the contradiction of what he's saying here.
00:41:29.000 New Speaker Mike Johnson, your thoughts.
00:41:33.000 Well, you cannot get to the right of Mike Johnson in the MAGA caucus.
00:41:40.000 It's inconceivable that you could get to the right of him.
00:41:43.000 There are people who are definitely more lunatic than he is, and he's got very good manners, and he's an able lawyer.
00:41:54.000 When we say he opposed democracy, we know that from his giving a legal gloss and finish to all of Donald Trump's arguments about electoral fraud and making the independent state legislature doctrine argument, which the Supreme Court fortunately did not bite on.
00:42:14.000 Good luck with this argument that Johnson is a wild extremist, but this is the line the media are going to take.
00:42:19.000 I don't think that it's going to have very much play.
00:42:20.000 Meanwhile, in other stupid Congress news, again, our Congress is filled with dullards, Jamal Bowman has now pled guilty to pulling a fire alarm.
00:42:27.000 Remember that time when he claimed that he didn't know a fire alarm was a fire alarm?
00:42:30.000 He thought it was going to open the doors?
00:42:31.000 Well, now we actually have tape of what he did.
00:42:32.000 He didn't even try to walk out the doors.
00:42:33.000 Remember, he said he thought that if he pulled the fire alarm, it wouldn't delay the congressional voting or anything, that it would allow him to walk out these doors.
00:42:39.000 Here's Jamal Bowman.
00:42:40.000 He walks up to the doors.
00:42:41.000 He removes signs saying not to, and then he pulls the fire alarm, and then he walks away.
00:42:45.000 He hasn't even tried to get out the doors.
00:42:47.000 So that means that Jamal Bowman lied to all of you, and he is a disgrace to his office.
00:42:50.000 But we knew that already, simply from many of the positions that he has taken.
00:42:54.000 In just a second, we are going to get to the latest on the economy, plus an amazing story out of New York City.
00:43:00.000 I talk about Preborn a lot on the shows.
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00:44:02.000 Meanwhile, Joe Biden's approval ratings continue to absolutely tank.
00:44:04.000 His approval ratings are down at 37%, 59% disapproval.
00:44:08.000 Independents have them at 35% approval rating.
00:44:11.000 These are terrible numbers, really bad numbers.
00:44:13.000 In fact, even among Democrats, his approval numbers are down 11% month over month.
00:44:17.000 He's at 75% in the approval ratings among Democrats.
00:44:21.000 Part of that is the continuing failure of the economy.
00:44:23.000 So the economy came in hot last quarter, 5% GDP growth, 4.9% GDP growth.
00:44:29.000 The problem is there's a reason why it's at 5% GDP growth, and it's not particularly good.
00:44:34.000 I'm gonna go through some of this for a second.
00:44:36.000 So E.J.
00:44:36.000 Antoni is an economist for the Heritage Foundation.
00:44:39.000 He has a good breakdown of this.
00:44:41.000 Here's what he says.
00:44:42.000 He says, real GDP jumped 4.9% in the third quarter.
00:44:45.000 What's fueling the rise versus what's not speaks volumes about the economy's trajectory.
00:44:50.000 The key driver of normal economic growth, which is real private fixed investment, meaning I invest in a business, it's flat since quarter one of 2022.
00:44:57.000 The residential side is even worse because real private investment there is below pre-pandemic levels because the housing market shortages are continuing because of the incredibly high mortgage interest rates right now.
00:45:09.000 So where exactly is the investment surge coming from?
00:45:11.000 Inventory.
00:45:12.000 So firms see inflation continuing and they're stocking up right now because they don't want to pay twice what they're paying now a month from now.
00:45:17.000 So basically you're front-loading all the economic growth into this quarter in expectation that the prices are going to continue to go up going into Q4.
00:45:24.000 So again, that adds to today's GDP, but it subtracts from tomorrow's GDP.
00:45:28.000 How about consumer spending?
00:45:30.000 Well, it turns out that the rise in real spending is being driven by debt.
00:45:35.000 Real disposable income actually fell again last quarter.
00:45:38.000 Inflation continues to truck along.
00:45:41.000 The price index for GDP doubled from the previous quarter, 3.5% versus 1.7%.
00:45:43.000 3.5% versus 1.7%.
00:45:46.000 That is the highest rate since 2007, pre-pandemic.
00:45:49.000 So again, this is what you call an unsustainable burst in growth,
00:45:54.000 a short-term burst at the expense of future growth.
00:45:57.000 Everybody can feel it.
00:45:58.000 Everybody knows that, which is why nobody's buying the numbers that are coming out right now.
00:46:01.000 Meanwhile, Joe Biden continues to pretend that Bidenomics is working out amazingly well.
00:46:05.000 Top Joe Biden economic advisor, Lael Brainard, she continues to trot out the old saws here.
00:46:12.000 That strong economy is a testament to the resilience of American consumers and American workers supported by President Biden's plan to grow the economy by growing the middle class.
00:46:25.000 And real wages are up over the last year.
00:46:29.000 Well, I mean, nobody feels that, so there's that.
00:46:32.000 Like, no one feels it.
00:46:33.000 Trying to talk people out of the thing is not going to make them feel any better about it.
00:46:36.000 Meanwhile, in terms of failed policies that are hilariously coming home to root, so Joe Biden's immigration policy has driven a lot of blue state mayors, governors to actually start adopting right-wing policies.
00:46:47.000 Remember that time it was really, really terrible because Ron DeSantis actually just gave flights for illegal immigrants to Martha's Vineyard and this was like the end of the world?
00:46:53.000 Politico, today, quote, here's one approach to discourage migrants from settling in New York City.
00:46:57.000 Give them a free one-way plane ticket out of town.
00:47:00.000 Oh, so it's okay when Eric Adams does it, but it's super bad when Ron DeSantis does it.
00:47:04.000 Mayor Eric Adams is ramping up efforts to fly migrants to the destination of their choice, figuring it's cheaper than sheltering them for months on end.
00:47:09.000 Remember, when Republicans do this, it's a human rights violation.
00:47:12.000 When Eric Adams does it, it's a clever solution.
00:47:15.000 He's simultaneously warning those opting to stay in New York may be in for a winter of sleeping outside with shelters full.
00:47:20.000 Adam said, well, you're out of room.
00:47:21.000 You're out of room.
00:47:23.000 Every year, my relatives show up for Thanksgiving.
00:47:24.000 They all want to sleep at my house.
00:47:25.000 There's no more room.
00:47:26.000 That's where we are right now.
00:47:29.000 Hilariously, he's now meeting opposition from his own party.
00:47:31.000 City Council Member Shahana Hanif said, quote, What we've witnessed from this administration is that they've
00:47:35.000 consistently created hysteria and chaos and confusion. They're not using a tone of inclusivity
00:47:39.000 and welcome.
00:47:40.000 Oh, well, I mean, if they're not using a tone of inclusivity and welcome,
00:47:44.000 what what is anyone going to do?
00:47:46.000 It's just hilarious now that all the Democrats are adopting all of the Trumpian immigration policies, but pretending that it's totally fine when they do it.
00:47:53.000 Already, guys, the rest of the show is continuing right now.
00:47:55.000 You're not going to want to miss it.
00:47:55.000 We'll be joined by Gidon Hazoni.
00:47:57.000 Gidon is the co-founder of an organization called Soldiers Save Lives, an organization in honor of his best friend, David Newman, who was killed in the Hamas massacre.
00:48:04.000 They are raising money and resources for people in need in Israel.
00:48:07.000 You can go check out their website right now.
00:48:10.000 Over at SoldiersSaveLives.org.
00:48:12.000 If you're not a member, become a member.
00:48:13.000 Use code SHAPIRO.
00:48:14.000 Check out for two months free on all annual plans.