The Ben Shapiro Show - America Needs Big Balls, NOT Mahmoud Khalil

00:00:00.000 All righty, folks, an enormous show coming up for you today.

00:00:03.000 We are going to contrast an actual heroic human being who we need more of, who the media hate, with a person who's awful, who the media continue to tout, just demonstrating the difference between left and right.

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00:01:34.000 All righty.

00:01:34.000 So we begin with the kind of American we need more of.

00:01:37.000 So there is a man.

00:01:38.000 His name is Edward Coristine.

00:01:41.000 And he was ripped up and down by the media when he first came onto the public scene.

00:01:44.000 Why?

00:01:45.000 Well, because he was working for Doge.

00:01:47.000 He apparently is kind of a young genius who is working for Elon Musk's Department of Governmental Efficiency.

00:01:52.000 And he was known as Big Balls.

00:01:54.000 And this was the end of the world.

00:01:56.000 According to our left-wing media, the idea that you would have a young man who calls himself with this very online moniker, this Big Balls moniker, looking over the American budgetary system and saying, this doesn't belong and this does belong, that was terrible.

00:02:09.000 That was awful.

00:02:10.000 We couldn't have somebody like that working in our system.

00:02:13.000 Well, it turns out that Edward Coristine isn't just a young genius who is capable of looking at budgetary numbers and figuring out where the waste, fraud, and abuse are.

00:02:22.000 It turns out that he also is kind of an amazing dude.

00:02:25.000 According to Politico, a 19-year-old man known as Big Balls, who played a key role in the Doge initiative to shrink the size of government, was assaulted over the weekend in Washington.

00:02:34.000 He was assaulted by approximately 10 juveniles near DuPont Circle about 3 a.m. on Sunday, according to a police report obtained by Politico.

00:02:41.000 Police arrested two 15-year-olds as they attempted to flee the scene.

00:02:44.000 A black iPhone 16 valued at $1,000 was also reported stolen during the incident, according to the report.

00:02:51.000 President Trump posted a photo on his social media platform showing Coristine shirtless with what appeared to be blood spatter on his face, body, and pants.

00:02:59.000 And he called for a change in the law so juveniles who attacked him could be charged as adults.

00:03:04.000 President Trump said, perhaps it should have been done a long time ago.

00:03:06.000 Then this incredible young man and so many others would not have had to go through the horrors of violent crime.

00:03:11.000 He said, crime in Washington, D.C. is totally out of control.

00:03:14.000 Local youths and gang members, some only 14, 15, and 16 years old, are randomly attacking, mugging, maiming, and shooting innocent citizens.

00:03:20.000 At the same time, knowing they will almost immediately be released.

00:03:23.000 They are not afraid of law enforcement because they know nothing ever happens to them, but it's going to happen now.

00:03:28.000 The law in D.C. must be changed to prosecute these minors as adults and lock them up for a long time, starting at age 14.

00:03:33.000 The most recent victim was beaten mercilessly by local thugs.

00:03:35.000 Washington, D.C. must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans and importantly, for the world to see.

00:03:41.000 If D.C. doesn't get attacked together and quickly, we'll have no choice but to take federal control of the city and run the city how it should be run and put criminals on notice.

00:03:48.000 They're not going to get away with it anymore.

00:03:49.000 Perhaps it should have been done a long time ago.

00:03:51.000 Then this incredible young man and so many others would not have had to go through the horrors of violent crime.

00:03:55.000 If this continues, I'm going to exert my powers and federalize the city, make America great again.

00:04:00.000 So what exactly happened here?

00:04:02.000 Apparently, Koristine said that the assailants approached him outside his vehicle while he was with a woman, identified in the report as his significant other, and made a comment about taking the vehicle.

00:04:13.000 He told officers he got the other person into the vehicle just before he was attacked.

00:04:17.000 So he made sure that the woman was not attacked.

00:04:20.000 Elon Musk claimed on X, a gang of about a dozen young men tried to assault a woman in her car at night in D.C. A Doge team member saw what was happening, ran to defend her, and was severely beaten to the point of concussion, but he saved her.

00:04:31.000 It's time to federalize D.C. So, remember, the media thought that this kid, this young man, was bad.

00:04:38.000 He was bad because he was very online and he was young and he was smart and he wanted to go through the governmental records and find ways for this is the kind of person we needed fewer of in America, according to our legacy media.

00:04:49.000 Big balls was the problem with America. 0.98

00:04:52.000 Meanwhile, the media was upholding another young man, claiming that this is the kind of person America needs.

00:04:58.000 That would be Mahmoud Khalil.

00:04:59.000 Mahmoud Khalil, of course, was the import from abroad, an activist who hates America, who hates the West, who hates Israel, who is not only complicit in anti-Semitism, but an anti-Semitic provocateur. 0.57

00:05:13.000 He was imported to Columbia University to essentially just be an activist against the West, against America, against Israel, and against Jews.

00:05:21.000 And when the Trump administration looked at his participation in the violent, yes, violent student protests at Colombia, they decided to deport him.

00:05:31.000 And a court stopped that deportation, and the entire left rallied to his cause.

00:05:35.000 He was a victim of the American. 1.00

00:05:37.000 America needed more Mahmoud Khalils. 0.99

00:05:40.000 Well, now Mahmoud Khalil is out there on the talk circuit, and he sat with Ezra Klein over at the New York Times, where he promptly explained to Ezra Klein that essentially October 7th was justified, that Israel had a coming, that there was no actual anti-Semitism at Columbia University or anything of the like.

00:05:57.000 This is the person, this Mahmoud Khalil, we need more of him according to the left.

00:06:03.000 Fewer of Edward Corsi, fewer of the big balls type young men, and more imports from third world countries who hate America and hate Jews and make our country worse. 0.99

00:06:14.000 That's what we need.

00:06:15.000 Here is Ezra Klein, who I have to say, I like Ezra personally, but this particular interview is just egregious.

00:06:22.000 I mean, truly egregious.

00:06:23.000 Here is Ezra Klein with Mahmoud Khalil, hero of the left-wing republic.

00:06:29.000 You can see that the situation is not sustainable.

00:06:32.000 You have an Israeli government that's absolutely ignoring Palestinians.

00:06:39.000 They are trying to make that deal with Saudi and just happy about their Apraham Accord without looking at Palestinians as if Palestinians are not part of the equation.

00:06:52.000 And they circumvent the Palestinian question.

00:06:58.000 And it's clear it's becoming more and more violent.

00:07:03.000 Like, you know, by October 6th, over 200 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and settlers.

00:07:11.000 Over 40 of them were children.

00:07:15.000 So that's what I mean by like, unfortunately, we couldn't avoid such a moment.

00:07:22.000 So he's calling October 7th unavoidable.

00:07:25.000 And if you actually watch the entire interview with Ezra Klein, some of the things that he says are absolutely astonishingly pro-terrorism.

00:07:31.000 I mean, clearly pro-terrorism.

00:07:33.000 At one point, he says, having lived in the Middle East most of my life, unfortunately, he lived in Syria.

00:07:37.000 The only Jew you hear about is the one who's trying to kill you. 1.00

00:07:39.000 For those in Gaza and the West Bank, that's the only Jewish person they encountered, the one at checkpoints, the one raiding their homes. 1.00

00:07:44.000 Well, Khalil didn't grow up around Jews. 0.93

00:07:45.000 He grew up in Syria.

00:07:47.000 And yet he is openly stating that he grew up hating Jews.

00:07:50.000 And so he comes to the United States.

00:07:52.000 He finds a bunch of left-wing Jews, like Jewish Voice for Peace, which is not Jewish or a voice for peace. 0.64

00:07:58.000 And he says that's what real Judaism is, which is an absurdity.

00:08:01.000 And then Khalil says there was no anti-Semitism at Colombia.

00:08:04.000 Quote, I would push back regarding anti-Semitism at Colombia.

00:08:07.000 He said, I would say that there is this manufactured hysteria about anti-Semitism at Colombia because of the protests.

00:08:14.000 Well, no, no.

00:08:17.000 He said, it's not like anti-Semitism is happening at Colombia because of the Palestine movement, which is, of course, a lie.

00:08:23.000 And then he says, quote, from the river to the sea, from the Palestinian perspective, no one ever said it's a violent call.

00:08:29.000 And then, of course, he defends globalized the intifada.

00:08:33.000 And then, again, he says October 7th was not, in fact, an aggressive attack.

00:08:40.000 He said it was just to break the cycle, to break the Palestinians are not being heard. 0.79

00:08:43.000 To me, it's a desperate attempt to tell the world Palestinians are here. 0.99

00:08:45.000 Palestinians are part of the equation. 1.00

00:08:47.000 That was my interpretation of why Hamas did the October 7th attacks on Israel.

00:08:51.000 So, Khalil, again, left-wing martyr, is a pro-terror show. 0.70

00:08:56.000 That's always what he was.

00:08:58.000 And the left insists that he be allowed Into the country.

00:09:00.000 And that not only that, we need more of these people in our country.

00:09:04.000 They're aided and abetted here by libertarian groups like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which in the past has done good work.

00:09:11.000 But this idea that we have an obligation as a country to import students to study here on our dime and give them subsidies when they hate America is an absurdity.

00:09:21.000 It's ridiculous.

00:09:22.000 Why in the world do we need to import people to our country who hate the West? 0.78

00:09:27.000 Again, the contrast between the media classification of this young white man who is working for the federal government to cut waste fraud and abuse, the kind of person who will rush to a woman's side to save her from being assaulted by thugs.

00:09:43.000 That contrast between that and the absolutely kid-glove, glowing treatment given to Mahmoud Khalil by Ezra Klein and the rest of the legacy media is plainly astonishing.

00:09:53.000 It's plainly astonishing.

00:09:55.000 And it speaks to not only what the media are, but what the left has become.

00:09:58.000 I will say it over and over and over again.

00:10:00.000 The left wing is Zoran Mamdani.

00:10:02.000 The left wing is not some moderate senator from Minnesota.

00:10:05.000 It's not Abiy Klobuchar, who's bad enough in many ways.

00:10:08.000 It is Zoran Mamdani.

00:10:10.000 It's Zorin Mamdani, period.

00:10:11.000 This is the new Democratic Party, and they are all falling in line.

00:10:16.000 Senator Slotkin from Michigan, she is supposed to be one of the moderates, Alyssa Slotkin. 1.00

00:10:21.000 She's not a moderate at all.

00:10:23.000 Here she is suggesting that Mamdani's messaging is perfectly fine, perfectly good.

00:10:27.000 Here she was on Meet the Press.

00:10:30.000 I've said very openly that I don't, I don't, I've never would be called an expert on New York City politics, but the two messages were like a blinking red light.

00:10:38.000 How can you miss them?

00:10:40.000 People are still extremely focused on the cost of living and how they can't get ahead.

00:10:45.000 Still the motivating issue.

00:10:46.000 And then, number two, they want that new generation of leadership.

00:10:49.000 Oh, well, I mean, if you call pro-terrorism a new generation of leadership, I guess it's all totally fine. 0.98

00:10:54.000 By the way, there's an open Michigan Senate seat, and Democrats may well nominate a Zorin Mamdani type for that Senate seat.

00:11:01.000 That is one of the candidates who's up in the Democratic primary right now, as Politico is covering today.

00:11:06.000 Already more on the left's love for Zoran Mamdani.

00:11:09.000 Plus, we'll get to Senators Tim Scott and Marsha Blackburn.

00:11:12.000 A lot coming up first.

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00:13:27.000 Meanwhile, AOC, of course, called on the rest of the Democratic Party to stand behind Zorin Mamdani.

00:13:33.000 Quote, New Yorkers knew Andrew Cuomo was backed by Trump's orbit.

00:13:35.000 That's why he lost the primary.

00:13:36.000 Now we have confirmation.

00:13:37.000 It's time for Dem leaders to unite behind Zorin Mamdani.

00:13:40.000 If they don't know, how can they call for party unity later?

00:13:43.000 We must lead by example.

00:13:45.000 Let's win together.

00:13:46.000 So there are no limits to what Democrats will.

00:13:48.000 But of course, AOC agrees with Zorin Mamdani.

00:13:50.000 I mean, that's the pretty open secret.

00:13:52.000 It is not that Democrats are uncomfortable with Zora Mamdani.

00:13:56.000 I've been saying this for years.

00:13:57.000 When Democrats look at looters and rioters during the BLM protests, when Democrats look at left-wing terrorists who commit acts of violence, unfortunately, they don't look at their viewpoints as the problem.

00:14:10.000 Instead, what they do is they say those people are just too passionate.

00:14:12.000 Their problem is they just took it too far.

00:14:14.000 So the best you'll get from a Democrat is that Zora Mamdani's heart is in the right place, but he just took it too far.

00:14:18.000 Not that his viewpoint is bad, not that his worldview is corrupt.

00:14:21.000 No, it's that he might be a little bit, you know, too fresh.

00:14:25.000 He might just be a little bit too green.

00:14:27.000 He hasn't really sanded off the edges yet, but that's what makes him so appealing, you see.

00:14:31.000 He's the new wave of the Democratic Party, and so we must side behind him.

00:14:34.000 And of course, they are doing this oppositionally because they're suggesting that if it were to be Andrew Cuomo, who, by the way, lifelong Democrat, who is not in any way, shape, or form a moderate.

00:14:46.000 But Andrew Cuomo is too far to the right for them because they want to move into this new Democratic era.

00:14:53.000 That is what they want desperately.

00:14:54.000 The mainstream Democratic Party is falling in line.

00:14:58.000 Chuck Schumer's day is over.

00:14:59.000 Nancy Pelosi, who I spent my entire political life looking at Nancy Pelosi as the left wing of the Democratic Party, she now looks like Scoop Jackson. 1.00

00:15:06.000 It's unbelievable.

00:15:08.000 Zora Mamdani, of course, is using the fact that everybody who is not a socialist nut job does not want to see him be mayor as an excuse to say that he should be mayor.

00:15:18.000 Because if Donald Trump and people who like Donald Trump are supporting Andrew Cuomo, that means that you have to vote for the communist who hates the country and believes that America is a nefarious force in the world.

00:15:28.000 And also that maybe Hamas had a point.

00:15:32.000 I would be remiss if I did not directly address some of the news that we saw come out just a few hours ago, which is that the president of this country, Donald Trump, has been coordinating with Andrew Cuomo in direct conversation with the former governor.

00:15:51.000 It is Trump billionaires who have been opposing our campaign's vision for a city that New Yorkers can afford.

00:16:00.000 All I can say is do it.

00:16:02.000 Seriously, Democrats, do it.

00:16:03.000 Let's see how it works out for you.

00:16:05.000 It's a bold plan, Cotton.

00:16:07.000 We'll see how it works out.

00:16:08.000 You want to make a communist the mayor of New York City, the financial hub of planet Earth?

00:16:14.000 Well, we'll see how long all the people who actually pay the bills in New York decide to stay there and keep the lights on.

00:16:19.000 We'll see how that works out.

00:16:20.000 The answer is not well.

00:16:21.000 But again, the Democratic Party has been completely hijacked by the left.

00:16:25.000 They had no systemic immunity to their own wokies. 0.96

00:16:28.000 They just didn't.

00:16:29.000 They decided to bow to them because in the end, they didn't have the courage of their own, quote-unquote, moderate convictions.

00:16:34.000 There's been a problem in the Democratic Party since the 1960s.

00:16:37.000 Nothing has changed.

00:16:38.000 So just get ready for the next wave.

00:16:40.000 Get ready for the next wave.

00:16:41.000 Like, for example, this member of the Democratic Socialists of America, a panelist at a recent conference who suggests that her goal is to perform abortions at a church.

00:16:53.000 And on that revolutionary horizon, want to perform abortions at a church, you know, voting for it's all said and done.

00:17:01.000 The only real difference between marriage and prostitution is the price and the duration of the contract.

00:17:06.000 We can fight for family abolition. 0.92

00:17:08.000 We can imagine family abolition because we have seen black women do it, because we have seen these indigenous communities do it. 1.00

00:17:17.000 But, you know, it is, to me, it is the institution of marriage can only exist alongside the criminalization of sex workers.

00:17:25.000 So just to find out whether this is a good idea or a bad idea, them talking about abolition of the family, how indigenous peoples are abolishing traditional notions of, how that's awesome. 1.00

00:17:34.000 I asked our sponsors over at Comet, quote, how much more likely are children of single mothers to drop out of school, commit a crime, or end up on welfare?

00:17:41.000 Quote, children from single-parent families are significantly more likely to drop out of high school compared to peers from married coupled families.

00:17:47.000 Some sources report that as many as 71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.

00:17:53.000 Well, okay.

00:17:54.000 How about crime?

00:17:55.000 Quote, more than half of incarcerated youth in the U.S. were raised in one-parent families.

00:17:59.000 70% of inmates in state juvenile detention centers served long sentences, reportedly come from single-mother households.

00:18:06.000 How about welfare dependency?

00:18:08.000 Well, children living in single mother homes are 50% more likely to experience official poverty as adults than peers raised in married family homes.

00:18:15.000 So great idea, Democratic Socialists of America.

00:18:17.000 You're making everybody better off by destroying the best possibility of an upward ladder climb economically, the stable nuclear family. 0.87

00:18:26.000 So get ready for more of that.

00:18:27.000 Get ready for more of that because if you think that the left ever has a limit, you are wrong.

00:18:30.000 They will always go further.

00:18:31.000 The revolution always eats its own and always moves further to the left.

00:18:36.000 And this is, again, one of the reasons why you see so much support on the left wing for Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

00:18:42.000 As we all knew, as anybody who's ever covered the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians knows, there is a phenomenon that has existed for legitimately decades in this conflict.

00:18:53.000 It's called Pallywood Online.

00:18:55.000 And that is essentially Palestinians staging photos and videos that look as though they are being abused and they do it for the cameras. 0.93

00:19:03.000 It turns out that that is absolutely 100% happening in the current Gaza war, as reported by BILD, which is a German newspaper.

00:19:12.000 Photographers have been staging the photographs of supposed starvation in the Gaza Strip.

00:19:18.000 Here is a picture, for example, of one of those staged photographs.

00:19:22.000 This is a quote-unquote member of the press.

00:19:25.000 I believe this person works for an outlet from Turkey, which, of course, is a sponsor of Hamas. 0.83

00:19:30.000 And he is essentially going around with his camera and asking people to wave their bowls.

00:19:37.000 You see the same picture over and over.

00:19:39.000 It's always in the same exact area.

00:19:41.000 People waving empty pots.

00:19:44.000 This, apparently, according to Build, and according to another German newspaper called Sudeutsch Zeitung, this is staged, quote, amid Israel's faltering public diplomacy and growing global momentum for recognizing a Palestinian state, Germany's Sudeutsch Zeitung published an investigative report revealing how Hamas manipulates imagery to shape international opinion, successfully so in many cases.

00:20:04.000 The report details how the group stages images of hunger and despair in Gaza using professional photographers covering the war.

00:20:10.000 While acknowledging the reality of severe food shortages in the Gaza Strip, the paper emphasizes that many widely circulated images of emaciated children do not accurately reflect current conditions.

00:20:19.000 Some of the photos are not from Gaza at all.

00:20:21.000 Others feature children suffering from chronic illnesses unrelated to the war.

00:20:25.000 One image obtained by the paper shows photographers directing Gazans to pose as though they were waiting in line for food.

00:20:32.000 That one, by the way, seemed to make the cover of Time magazine.

00:20:35.000 Germany's Build newspaper also addressed the issue, reporting that one of the freelance journalists responsible for distributing staged images regularly posts anti-Israel content on social media.

00:20:45.000 According to Sudeutsch Zeitung, the photos emerging in recent weeks show precisely what Hamas wants the world to see, a civilian population suffering as a result of Israel's military campaign.

00:20:55.000 Germany's Journalist Association issued a warning to local media outlets about manipulation attempts through professionally produced press photography.

00:21:03.000 The TJV chair, Mika Boyster, stated, quote, all parties involved in this war are using the power of imagery like never before to shake, but to shape public opinion.

00:21:13.000 So, again, historians and photography experts have been looking at these visual documentations.

00:21:20.000 One said, quote, many images of starving or sick children are likely staged or taken out of context.

00:21:24.000 They're not fake, but the subjects are positioned in a certain way or paired with misleading captions that tap into our visual memory and emotions.

00:21:32.000 And this is what Hamas does, of course. 0.90

00:21:34.000 There's nothing new here.

00:21:35.000 This has been happening for legitimately decades.

00:21:37.000 And this is why it is astonishing to watch pseudo-journalists go out there and claim that whatever Hamas's Gaza Ministry of Health says must be taken at face value.

00:21:49.000 Or go out there and show the exact same pictures that are clearly staged and then suggest that this is what life looks like in the Gaza Strip, even as Israel ships literally millions of meals into the Gaza Strip every single day.

00:22:02.000 Again, there is nothing new about this.

00:22:05.000 Columnist named Mati Friedman, he talked about the fact that if you're working with the Associated Press, the Associated Press had its coverage dictated to it by Hamas.

00:22:13.000 You could not work in the Gaza Strip without Hamas dictating your media coverage and censoring it.

00:22:18.000 Otherwise, you just would be expelled or harmed.

00:22:21.000 Here was Mati Friedman explaining.

00:22:24.000 As far as I know, I was the first staffer to erase information from the story because we were threatened by Hamas, which happened at the very end of 2008.

00:22:33.000 We had a great reporter in Gaza, a Palestinian, who had always been really an excellent reporter.

00:22:38.000 We had a detail in a story.

00:22:40.000 The detail was a crucial one.

00:22:41.000 It was that Hamas fighters were dressed as civilians and were being counted as civilians in the death toll.

00:22:47.000 An important thing to know, that went out in an AP story.

00:22:50.000 The reporter called me a few hours later.

00:22:52.000 It was clear that someone had spoken to him.

00:22:55.000 And he told me I was on the desk in Jerusalem.

00:22:58.000 So I was kind of writing the story from the Main Bureau in Jerusalem.

00:23:01.000 And he said, Matsi, you have to take that detail out of the story.

00:23:03.000 And it was clear that someone had threatened him.

00:23:05.000 I took the detail out of the story.

00:23:07.000 I suggested to our editors that we note in an editor's note that we were now complying with Hamas censorship.

00:23:13.000 I was overruled.

00:23:14.000 And from that point in time, the AP, like all of its sister organizations, collaborates with Hamas censorship in Gaza.

00:23:21.000 What does that mean?

00:23:22.000 You'll see a lot of dead civilians and you won't see dead militants.

00:23:25.000 You won't have a clear idea of what the Hamas' military strategy is.

00:23:28.000 And this is the kicker, the center of the coverage will be a number, a casualty number that is provided to the press by something called the Gaza Health Ministry, which is Hamas.

00:23:38.000 And we've been doing that since 2008.

00:23:40.000 And it's a way of basically settling the story before you get into any other information.

00:23:46.000 And the West is willing to do all of this sort of propagandizing on behalf of terrorist groups.

00:23:50.000 They are.

00:23:50.000 I mean, that is what this is.

00:23:52.000 The Associated Press literally yesterday ran a piece by Bassem Maru and Sarah El-Deeb with photos by Hassan Amar about the evils of Israel's pager attack, the most targeted anti-terror attack in literally world history with pictures of people who were hurt by the exploding pagers.

00:24:10.000 A sympathetic piece about how Khizbalah was really harmed.

00:24:14.000 It was really, really terrible, what Israel did. 0.99

00:24:17.000 This is, as Rob Henderson, the columnist, has written, this is a luxury belief of the West.

00:24:22.000 Let us be very clear about Hamas. 0.92

00:24:24.000 Hamas is living off the stupidity of the West, the absolute sheer stupidity and insipidity of people in the West.

00:24:30.000 That's all.

00:24:31.000 Hamas started a war and then it lost, but it knew that it could win if it played on the fact that people in the West are too dumb to understand what Hamas actually is and what they want.

00:24:41.000 We in the West, we live great lives.

00:24:43.000 Thank God.

00:24:44.000 I've spent my entire life growing up in an America in which I'm surrounded by wonderful people who care about their children.

00:24:50.000 And that's true whether I was living in a blue area like California or a red area like Florida, people who share a common set of basic values that are either explicitly Christian or Judeo-Christian or are living off the fumes of that heritage.

00:25:02.000 And then we in the West, we project that viewpoint onto everyone else on earth.

00:25:07.000 Well, they care about their kids the same way that we care about our kids.

00:25:09.000 So if kids are getting killed in Gaza, it must be because Israel is being indiscriminate. 0.76

00:25:12.000 Or maybe Hamas doesn't.

00:25:15.000 Not maybe.

00:25:15.000 They don't.

00:25:16.000 And they say they don't.

00:25:18.000 They literally put out videos talking about how they love death like we love life.

00:25:23.000 And then we say, no, no, no, you don't.

00:25:24.000 No, we don't believe you.

00:25:25.000 Probably you love life exactly the same way that we do.

00:25:28.000 You would never do some of the stuff that you are explicitly admitting that you do.

00:25:32.000 And if you are doing that, it must be because we're being so mean to you.

00:25:35.000 Because honestly, like every human heart is like mine.

00:25:38.000 Every single person wants the same things that I do.

00:25:41.000 Now, the ultimate manifestation of that was actually a George W. Bush speech, his second inaugural address, where he said there was a yearning for freedom in every human heart, which is not true.

00:25:50.000 That is simply not true.

00:25:52.000 There is a yearning in the human heart for many things, but the idea of American style political freedom is not one of them.

00:25:59.000 That is a unique thing in world history.

00:26:02.000 And projecting that belief system, that moral system on everybody else and saying that it's innate, that it's just something that everybody wants.

00:26:10.000 That is a mistake.

00:26:10.000 It is a category error.

00:26:12.000 And it means that your enemies are going to exploit it.

00:26:15.000 Because the same people who today are shedding salty tears for the presumed end of Hamas, which I hope will happen sometime in the next couple of weeks, the same people who are shedding those salty tears who are welcoming in Mahmoud Khali, oh, come in, Mahmoud. 0.84

00:26:27.000 We need more of you in our country.

00:26:28.000 We need more.

00:26:29.000 Explain to us why we're so bad.

00:26:30.000 Please tell us why we're such a guilty party.

00:26:32.000 Tell us why the West stinks as you sit there at Columbia University on a subsidized scholarship in a nicely apportioned New York City apartment.

00:26:41.000 Come in, please tell us.

00:26:42.000 Those same people, you know what Hamas would do with you if they actually had control of, say, the U.S. government?

00:26:48.000 It would not be what you think it would be.

00:26:52.000 But that stupidity is particularly what Hamas counts on. 0.90

00:26:55.000 Well, thank God President Trump does not suffer from the same delusions.

00:26:58.000 President Trump looked at the video, for example, Of Hamas starving an Israeli hostage.

00:27:03.000 By the way, the only video that I've seen thus far of an actual starved adult human who was healthy before is the Hamas hostage, Evyatar Tavid, who's being held in captivity, digging his own grave. 0.50

00:27:16.000 So President Trump looked at that video, and here he was saying, well, you know what?

00:27:20.000 It's up to Israel how they deal with Chambers.

00:27:23.000 Well, I don't know what the suggestion is.

00:27:25.000 I know that we are there now trying to get people fed.

00:27:28.000 As you know, $60 million was given by the United States fairly recently to supply food and a lot of food, frankly, for the people of Gaza that are obviously not doing too well with the food.

00:27:42.000 And I know Israel is going to help us with that in terms of distribution and also money.

00:27:47.000 We also have the Arab states who are going to help us with that in terms of the money and possibly distribution.

00:27:53.000 So that's what I'm focused on as far as the rest of it.

00:27:56.000 I really, I really can't say that's going to be pretty much up to Israel.

00:28:01.000 So, again, President Trump lives in the world of reality.

00:28:04.000 Secretary of State Marco Rubio said much the same thing.

00:28:06.000 He says, listen, the war needs to end, but it's going to have to end with Hamas not in power. 0.91

00:28:10.000 And it's up to Israel how that's accomplished while making sure that people get fed. 0.67

00:28:15.000 Have you spoken to the prime minister?

00:28:18.000 And do you think that is a wise decision for Israel to take over Gaza altogether? 0.66

00:28:24.000 Well, ultimately, the president has said that it's up to Israel to decide what they need to do for their own security.

00:28:29.000 I've spoken often, almost daily, to somebody in the Israeli government, often to the prime minister, but many times to many members of his team.

00:28:37.000 So good for the Trump administration for recognizing reality.

00:28:40.000 Meanwhile, on the foreign policy front, President Trump is now floating the possibility of a meeting with Vladimir Putin.

00:28:46.000 He said yesterday there was a good chance he would meet with Putin about the war in Ukraine after an offer Russia made Wednesday during a trip to Moscow by the special envoy Steve Witkoff.

00:28:56.000 Here is a video of Steve Witkoff greeting Putin at the Kremlin yesterday.

00:29:00.000 Here's what that looked like.

00:29:05.000 How are you, Mr. President?

00:29:06.000 Very just faint.

00:29:07.000 Thank you.

00:29:10.000 So good to see you.

00:29:14.000 Now, what actually happened in that meeting?

00:29:16.000 Well, I hope that this time Steve Witkoff did not use Putin's translator, which is what happened last time. 0.66

00:29:20.000 But Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Putin had actually provided Witkoff some examples of what Russia wants in order to come to some sort of ceasefire.

00:29:29.000 What we have is a better understanding of the conditions under which Russia would be prepared to end the war.

00:29:35.000 We now have to compare that to what the Ukrainians and our European allies, but the Ukrainians primarily, of course, are willing to accept.

00:29:41.000 And what you try to see is how far can you get these two positions closer?

00:29:45.000 How can you get these two positions closer to each other?

00:29:47.000 If we can get what the Ukrainians will accept and what the Russians will accept close enough, then I think there's the opportunity for the president to have a meeting that includes both Putin and Zelensky to try to close this thing out.

00:30:00.000 President Trump himself said, even though the United States is not directly involved in the conflict, he does feel a moral obligation to try and get to an end to it.

00:30:08.000 In terms of soldiers, I think Russia's lost over 20,000 since the beginning of the year.

00:30:13.000 20,000.

00:30:14.000 And I guess the estimate for Ukraine is about 9,000.

00:30:21.000 It's a terrible situation.

00:30:22.000 We want to get it stopped.

00:30:23.000 You know, we don't have American soldiers there, but I feel I have an obligation to get it stopped. 0.99

00:30:29.000 This was not my war.

00:30:30.000 This war would have never started, not even a chance.

00:30:32.000 And it didn't start for four years.

00:30:35.000 All righty, coming up, President Trump is trying to figure out exactly what his China policy should be with regard to chips and AI Plus.

00:30:43.000 We are joined by two, count them two, United States senators first.

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00:32:48.000 Meanwhile, the president of the United States is trying to come up with a China policy that both boxes them in, but also doesn't harm the American economy too much. 0.95

00:32:56.000 This is now manifesting itself as multiple deals with various American-based companies, as well as the possibility of tariffing chips that are coming into the United States from abroad.

00:33:07.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, President Trump said he would impose roughly 100% tariffs on all chips coming into the United States, but then would exempt tech companies that have promised to manufacture domestically.

00:33:16.000 That is a big win for Apple.

00:33:17.000 That is presumably why Apple yesterday agreed that it would launch an end-to-end silicon supply chain in the United States.

00:33:26.000 First, with today's announcements, I'm proud to say that Apple is leading the creation of an end-to-end silicon supply chain right here in America, from design to equipment to wafer production to fabrication to packaging.

00:33:43.000 In Texas, we're working with manufacturers like Texas Instruments, Global Wafers America, and Applied Materials.

00:33:50.000 We're working with AMCOR in Arizona and Broadcom and Global Foundries in New York.

00:33:56.000 Thanks to President Trump's vision and with his help in his first term, we also led the way to bring TSMC to Arizona by committing to be their first and largest customer.

00:34:08.000 Now, again, all of that is fine and good.

00:34:11.000 The reality is that that factory in Arizona for TSMC is going to take years to get up and running.

00:34:15.000 And so in the meantime, we need to make sure that actually American companies can still access TSMC chips that are produced in Taiwan.

00:34:21.000 The same is true of production in India.

00:34:24.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, the president's comment that tech companies can avoid new chip tariffs by promising to invest in the United States formalizes an arrangement many executives already understood.

00:34:32.000 Nearly every major tech firm has promised to put more into their U.S. operations, resulting in about $2 trillion in new pledges over the past seven months.

00:34:40.000 President Trump himself said that if you invest in the United States, there will effectively be no charge.

00:34:46.000 So spend more money domestically, and he will free you of the threatened tariffs against your products coming in from abroad.

00:34:52.000 Here's President Trump announcing.

00:34:56.000 Today, Apple is announcing that it will invest $600 billion.

00:35:01.000 This would the B in the United States over the next four years.

00:35:05.000 That's $100 billion more than they were originally going to invest.

00:35:11.000 And this is the largest investment Apple has ever made in America and anywhere else.

00:35:17.000 And it's just an honor to have you.

00:35:19.000 As you know, Apple's been an investor in other countries a little bit.

00:35:22.000 I won't say which ones, but a couple.

00:35:24.000 And they're coming home.

00:35:28.000 Okay, well, again, we will see what the sort of long-term ramifications are that because you can make these commitments.

00:35:34.000 And then if the factories in the United States are still not producing at the sort of same cost levels as a factory in India, presumably that peters out over the course of years.

00:35:42.000 The biggest thing the United States can do to ensure reshoring of manufacturing, for example, is radical deregulation, radical deregulation, not threats to punish companies that are bringing in products from abroad.

00:35:53.000 That may provide a sort of temporary stopgap or a temporary spike in spending.

00:35:57.000 But if you want a long-term, better business environment, You need a long-term better business environment.

00:36:01.000 That means radical deregulation, bringing down the cost structure in the United States.

00:36:06.000 That is the reason, for example, why most high-end products are being innovated in the United States is because our deregulatory structure, our cost structure, and our tax structure are better for that than they are for things like manufacturing.

00:36:19.000 Again, for the record, manufacturing is petering out in the United States or has been, not in terms of output.

00:36:25.000 It's actually up in terms of output, but manufacturing jobs are down, not really because of outsourcing, but because of technology replacing human beings.

00:36:33.000 So chip makers are fighting to ensure that their chips can be imported into the United States.

00:36:39.000 Meanwhile, Jen Ten Huang at NVIDIA is trying to ensure that he can export chips to places like China.

00:36:47.000 And this is a very hot topic and a big debate, actually, on the political right and the economic right about what sort of chips should be allowed to be outsourced and sent to China, because China obviously is using those chips in order to develop its own AI systems, many of which will be embedded in its military system.

00:37:03.000 So if they use our chips to build better military systems than we are building, that is a major world security problem.

00:37:09.000 And so there are hawks, like, for example, Mike Gallagher over at Palantir, who has suggested that allowing the shipment of H-20 chips to China is a real problem.

00:37:18.000 We shouldn't be doing it.

00:37:19.000 He likens it to shipping American-made missile parts to the Soviet Union in the middle of the Cold War.

00:37:24.000 I think that there's truth to that.

00:37:26.000 And then you have people like Aaron Ginn, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal and founder of Hydra Host, which is a venture-backed AI data center, services, and management company.

00:37:34.000 He writes for the Wall Street Journal today that actually the best solution would be to allow those chips to flow into China relatively unhindered because then they're at least using American platforms and they won't kind of build their own domestic chip manufacturing industry.

00:37:51.000 He says China has racked up more than 1,500 models, many of which are open source.

00:37:55.000 Many outperform or match the math and coding benchmarks of Western models.

00:37:58.000 Huawei's GPUs are quickly filling the gap left by the Biden administration's adoption of stricter export controls.

00:38:04.000 The research from Bernstein projects NVIDIA global AI market share will drop a whopping 12% this year alone if restrictions largely remain in place.

00:38:11.000 China's foundry capacity has vastly surpassed Washington's expectations.

00:38:14.000 China is shipping chips abroad several years ahead of schedule.

00:38:19.000 So he is suggesting that probably the best thing to do would be to allow NVIDIA to essentially out-compete China, including shipping those chips to China and destroying their domestic manufacturing industry in terms of chips.

00:38:30.000 I think it's a fascinating debate.

00:38:32.000 Honestly, I'm not sure which side is right.

00:38:34.000 I tend toward the more hawkish Mike Gallagher side on this, but I'm open to the argument from the Trump administration on the other side.

00:38:40.000 Meanwhile, the fight over redistricting continues.

00:38:44.000 It turns out that Beto is trying to get himself back in a presidential conversation by subsidizing the Texas Democrats fleeing from the state to avoid quorum for purposes of redistricting.

00:38:56.000 According to the Texas Tribune, powered by people, a Democratic political group started by former U.S. Representative Beto O'Rourke has emerged as a top funder, covering the cost of Texas lawmakers out-of-state decampment to thwart a new GOP proposed congressional map, according to two people involved with the fundraising efforts.

00:39:12.000 The expenses are mounting fast for the more than 50 Democrats in the Texas House who left the state on Sunday to prevent the Republican-controlled chamber from having enough members to conduct business.

00:39:20.000 So good news.

00:39:21.000 Beto is, you know, honestly, I'm kind of excited because I've missed doing the beto.

00:39:27.000 Boom, rip, bedo roar. 0.63

00:39:30.000 He's back and hasn't won a race in like 10 years.

00:39:32.000 But you know, he's cool, bro.

00:39:34.000 He's bro.

00:39:36.000 Here he is talking about, you know, like avoiding quorum and such.

00:39:40.000 Yeah, here we go.

00:39:43.000 If we fail, the consolidation of authoritarian power in America will be nearly unstoppable.

00:39:49.000 That means more masked, plainclothes, federal agents without badges or warrants sweeping our fellow Americans up off the streets.

00:39:56.000 It means more retribution and persecution and even violence for Trump's political opponents.

00:40:02.000 And it also means that a Republican majority Congress with these five stolen seats, if we allow them to succeed, will roll out the royal red carpet for a Trump third term.

00:40:11.000 So this is literally for all the marbles.

00:40:15.000 So many marbles, bro.

00:40:16.000 I love marbles.

00:40:18.000 So many colors in the marbles after you, you know, smoke a joint and you just stand there and look at marbles.

00:40:25.000 That guy is a Democratic hero.

00:40:27.000 Meanwhile, J.B. Pritzker, who must be lowered into the Illinois state capital by Crane, I'm just going to keep using that joke over and over and over.

00:40:33.000 He appeared on CBS with Stephen Colbert because there is nothing that is better at TV than a fat Chicagoan who looks like he ought to be in.

00:40:42.000 I mean, basically, if Chris Farley were alive, there is no question who plays J.B. Pritzker on SNL.

00:40:47.000 Is there?

00:40:47.000 I mean, really, is there?

00:40:48.000 No.

00:40:48.000 The answer is no.

00:40:49.000 He's on with Stephen Colbert, who has decided that he is no longer a comedy.

00:40:53.000 He never was.

00:40:53.000 He's not a comedy host anymore.

00:40:55.000 He's basically just an MSNBC host who is less funny than Rachel Maddow.

00:40:59.000 Here he is with J.B. Pritzker.

00:41:02.000 Every 10 years, we do a census in this country.

00:41:05.000 And right after the census, we redraw districts in every state.

00:41:09.000 But what the Republicans are trying to do, and the Texas Republicans, frankly, at the behest of Donald Trump, are doing it mid-decade.

00:41:18.000 That is extraordinarily rare.

00:41:20.000 That's an important point because I think he literally called them or wrote them and said, hey, I need five seats.

00:41:26.000 Go redraw this.

00:41:27.000 And the way they're doing it is taking voting rights away from black and brown people. 0.97

00:41:31.000 They're literally obliterating districts that were written according to the Voting Rights Act.

00:41:38.000 So this is going to end up in court if they actually are able to do it.

00:41:41.000 But the Texas House Democrats are trying to stop them from doing it.

00:41:45.000 And they're in Illinois to protect all of the people of the country.

00:41:49.000 So, yeah, that guy is who again, resistance, resist, resist.

00:41:54.000 Meanwhile, President Trump's like, you know what?

00:41:56.000 Maybe we should do a new census because after all, we did the last census badly last time.

00:42:02.000 Like it completely underallocated Republican seats.

00:42:04.000 It counted illegal immigrants.

00:42:05.000 Quote, I've instructed our Department of Commerce to immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate census based on modern day facts and figures.

00:42:11.000 And importantly, using the results and information gained from the presidential election of 2024.

00:42:15.000 People who are in our country illegally will not be counted in the census.

00:42:18.000 Thank you for your attention to this matter.

00:42:20.000 Now, constitutionally speaking, the census only happens once every 10 years.

00:42:23.000 And so basically doing another census, you can do it, but it's not going to be accepted as the basis for congressional or electoral college representation, presumably.

00:42:32.000 It would require, I think, a constitutional amendment in order to make sure that that happened.

00:42:35.000 However, it would be good to know how far off the numbers were in 2020, accepted in 2021, because it has really led to the end of a sort of one-man, one-vote scenario that the Supreme Court has dictated.

00:42:47.000 Joining us on the line is Senator Tim Scott.

00:42:49.000 He, of course, is not just the U.S. Senator from South Carolina.

00:42:52.000 He's a New York Times best-selling author and a successful small businessman.

00:42:55.000 He has a brand new book out titled One Nation Always Under God: Profiles in Christian Courage Center.

00:43:00.000 Scott, thanks so much for taking the time.

00:43:02.000 Good to be with you, Ben.

00:43:03.000 Thank you for having me.

00:43:04.000 Hope you're doing great.

00:43:05.000 Why don't we start with what brought you to write this book in the first place?

00:43:08.000 Why do you think it's important?

00:43:10.000 Well, I think so, so often in a current society, we're celebrating all the wrong people doing all the wrong things.

00:43:15.000 And I wanted to write a book about profiles and courage.

00:43:18.000 And frankly, our foundation as a nation is based on a Judeo-Christian foundation.

00:43:23.000 And the stronger we adhere to that, the brighter our future will be.

00:43:26.000 So I'm looking to the future by focusing on past successful stories of ordinary people who do extraordinary things.

00:43:34.000 Some people you've heard of, but others you have not heard of.

00:43:37.000 So obviously, you cover a bunch of stories in your book.

00:43:40.000 Is there any one that kind of jumps out at you as your favorite, the one that was closest to your heart?

00:43:45.000 You know, having been raised in poverty in a single-parent household and just really disillusioned at the beginning of life, I think about the story of Horatio Spafford.

00:43:55.000 Here's a guy who loses his family crossing the ocean, and he finds himself disillusioned about life.

00:44:02.000 And he pins a very famous Christian hymn, It is well, it is well with my soul.

00:44:08.000 And as a result of the loss of his kids, he decides he would invest his life into changing the course of history for other kids.

00:44:17.000 And this man spends the rest of his life making thousands upon thousands of children's lives better.

00:44:24.000 And it is a testament to standing up in the midst of the storm and believing that God can use a miserable outcome for good.

00:44:34.000 Senator, obviously, everybody should go purchase the book.

00:44:37.000 And meanwhile, you guys in the Senate are doing amazing work.

00:44:40.000 I mean, it's been an incredible first six months of the Trump administration.

00:44:43.000 I mean, really, if you had told me at the beginning of this administration that with a really thin majority in the Senate and with a bare, bare majority in the House, the Republicans would be able to get done as much as they've gotten done.

00:44:54.000 I would have been quite surprised.

00:44:56.000 What do you think are the big accomplishments of the first few months of the Trump administration?

00:45:01.000 Well, the first thing is we have a president who believes in Americans, not just in America, but in Americans.

00:45:06.000 Why?

00:45:07.000 Because this president, unlike President Biden, wants to give the resources and the power back to the people.

00:45:13.000 This is called what America should be.

00:45:16.000 Under President Biden, we had the exact opposite.

00:45:18.000 He wanted socialism.

00:45:20.000 Let's gather the resources from people and let the government make the decisions for you.

00:45:24.000 President Trump said that is just malarkey, or as we say in the South, hogwash.

00:45:29.000 And so what did he do?

00:45:30.000 He decided that the promises he was making on the campaign troll would be the promises he kept as the president of the United States.

00:45:36.000 Think about tax on tips, reducing tax on Social Security, reducing tax on overtime, allowing for your interest to be deducted on an American-made car and putting the American worker first. 0.53

00:45:49.000 How do you do that?

00:45:50.000 Well, you do that by focusing on this new working class coalition that made him president.

00:45:55.000 He did so by saying, I want reciprocity.

00:45:58.000 I want the world's economy to respect America's economy.

00:46:02.000 Two reasons.

00:46:03.000 Number one, we have the strongest economy and the best workers in the world.

00:46:06.000 And number two, we made the world economy what it is.

00:46:10.000 And why we have headwinds when our goods and products and services go into their countries and not when they come to our country doesn't work for the president.

00:46:19.000 He wants a level playing field.

00:46:22.000 That is a strong first start.

00:46:25.000 Second, the border.

00:46:27.000 We have to, Ben, celebrate a, you know, President Biden said, I can't close the border.

00:46:32.000 I can't close the border.

00:46:33.000 I need legislation.

00:46:34.000 President Trump said, you need a backbone.

00:46:36.000 And what did he do?

00:46:37.000 He closed the border, 95%, a precipitous drop in illegal border crossings.

00:46:42.000 Number three, he focused on the working class and the economy, passing the first tax cuts from President Trump's first administration and making them permanent, including the business benefits and the tax cuts, tremendous surge of energy in our economy.

00:47:01.000 If we can get the Fed to lower the interest rates, our economy will be on fire in a good way.

00:47:07.000 So let's talk about what's next for the Senate.

00:47:09.000 So obviously everything in the Senate right now rests on the ability to use reconciliation, which means that you really don't have a lot of opportunities to do legislation.

00:47:18.000 You essentially have one or two basically a year.

00:47:20.000 What is on the agenda for the United States Senate for the rest of this year and then going into next year as we approach the midterms?

00:47:27.000 Well, as you know, Ben, we have the HR responsibilities, the human resource responsibilities.

00:47:31.000 President Trump during his first administration, think about this, Ben.

00:47:35.000 He had almost 100 nominees who never saw the light of day.

00:47:40.000 They've never had a chance to do their job.

00:47:41.000 He didn't have his full team on the field.

00:47:45.000 This time, we are going to commit to getting President Trump's, not only his agenda done, but his team on the field.

00:47:52.000 That means we will get these nominees done.

00:47:55.000 There are about 1,200 of them that must be done.

00:47:57.000 That has got to be a priority because President Trump hand chose the right people to make America great again.

00:48:04.000 Number two, we have to continue to focus on getting the regulatory environment right.

00:48:09.000 We've seen a lot of information, a lot of news recently as it relates to debanking, this notion of redlining, modern day redlining of partisan conservatives out of our financial institutions and disfavored industries.

00:48:24.000 Think oil and gas, think gun manufacturers, think cryptocurrency, and frankly, the Trump family themselves.

00:48:30.000 Melania debanked. 0.99

00:48:32.000 President Trump talked about it earlier this week, debanked.

00:48:34.000 As chairman of the banking committee, it's one of the focuses I've had all year.

00:48:38.000 I've passed legislation already to take that reputational risk out of our banking system.

00:48:44.000 So we're going to focus on those issues that impact everyday Americans, especially those who are being discriminated against because of the partisan label they wear.

00:48:54.000 And we have right-sized the government.

00:48:56.000 This is absolutely astonishing to see President Trump go to work to whittle away at the swamp, as we call it.

00:49:06.000 The smaller the swamp, the better it is for the American people, because you need less money in Washington, more money at home, and that makes America great again as well.

00:49:15.000 So a lot of Americans right now are looking at the economy and they see a lot of the energy in the economy.

00:49:20.000 They also see some sort of crosswinds, some of those from some of the tariffs that you mentioned.

00:49:24.000 I mean, there's concern about obviously the jobs report from last month and then the revisions that the prior months.

00:49:29.000 And putting aside what happened to the head of the BLS, these sort of generalized concern about the state of the economy.

00:49:36.000 Are the tariffs and the trade barriers that we are now erecting going to undermine the capacity of American business to actually use inputs to trade freely?

00:49:46.000 What do you make of that?

00:49:47.000 My own take on this for what it's worth is that President Trump is a very pragmatic president.

00:49:50.000 And if this starts to become too much of a headwind, that he's going to change course.

00:49:54.000 What is your take on this?

00:49:55.000 Well, Ben, I think that's, you couldn't say it better.

00:49:57.000 The president watches real-time information and he actually wants the American worker to succeed.

00:50:02.000 And that is one of his top priorities.

00:50:04.000 Think about where we are, however, six months into this tariff regime conversation.

00:50:11.000 It made me nervous at the beginning, to be honest with you.

00:50:13.000 But what I had to do is make the decision.

00:50:15.000 I believe that President Trump's instincts in business are strong as dirt.

00:50:19.000 Therefore, let's give him the runway to make good decisions.

00:50:23.000 And as a result, I've said it just recently.

00:50:26.000 He was right.

00:50:27.000 How do we know he was right?

00:50:28.000 Well, number one, inflation is under 3%, 2.7%.

00:50:33.000 Remember, under President Biden, inflation got as high as 9%.

00:50:37.000 That's why there are so many people today that cannot become first-time homebuyers because interest rates follow the inflation rate, except for under President Trump when they should be coming down.

00:50:46.000 Number two, think about the fact that what businesses need is certainty and predictability in order to be successful in the marketplace.

00:50:53.000 The one thing I would encourage is once we get the right philosophy and formula together, let's be clear and certain as it relates to what the tariff percentage will be, period.

00:51:04.000 I love the fact that talking to Kevin Hassett over in the administration, the one thing you can see very clearly is that the runway that we've given him is paying dividends for the workers and for our country.

00:51:16.000 We've had deal after deal after deal.

00:51:20.000 That's great news.

00:51:21.000 And frankly, the barriers are coming down on our workers and our companies.

00:51:26.000 And they are allowing us to do what needed to be done, which is to level that playing field.

00:51:33.000 Getting that done is so important.

00:51:34.000 President Trump has done so.

00:51:35.000 So I believe that the tariff conversation is heading in his direction.

00:51:40.000 It's been there.

00:51:41.000 Inflation proves that.

00:51:43.000 And it will stay there because I believe, like you said, he's going to be nimble.

00:51:46.000 When necessary, he'll make the adjustments to protect the American worker and long-term America's economy.

00:51:53.000 Well, Senator Tim Scott, go check out his brand new book.

00:51:56.000 It just came out a couple of days ago, One Nation Always Under God Profiles in Christian Courage.

00:52:00.000 It's a great book.

00:52:01.000 It's worth the read.

00:52:01.000 Senator Scott, thanks so much for your time.

00:52:03.000 Thanks for what you're doing.

00:52:04.000 Thank you, Ben.

00:52:05.000 See you soon.

00:52:06.000 Well, joining us live on the Senate is Senator Marsha Blackburn, who just yesterday announced her campaign for governor of Tennessee.

00:52:13.000 Senator, congratulations.

00:52:15.000 Well, thank you so much.

00:52:16.000 And we are really looking forward to a great race and a good, solid win and being a great governor for the state of Tennessee.

00:52:25.000 So we'll get to what you've been doing in the Senate because it is amazing.

00:52:29.000 But I want to start with the question as to why you want to move from the Senate, obviously, which is a very, you're in a great position in the Senate.

00:52:35.000 You have a lot of power in the Senate, to the state level and move on over to the governor's house.

00:52:39.000 What do you think is important that needs to get done in the state of Tennessee?

00:52:42.000 Yes, as you look at what President Trump has delivered for the American people, it truly is a drain the swamp approach.

00:52:52.000 And power, authority, control is going back to the states.

00:52:56.000 How you deliver education and health care, how you produce energy, how you go about regulations, making certain that they're like touch and delivering benefits.

00:53:08.000 So it is going to be up to our nation's governors to put in place those policies that will cement that MAGA agenda, that conservative approach to governance.

00:53:20.000 It's going to be a great time to be a governor and to do a reset for the states on how they deliver services and how they conduct governance and the will of the people.

00:53:36.000 So just think about that opportunity.

00:53:39.000 And you know, Ben, when I look at it, when I was in the States Senate here in Tennessee, I led a four-year fight against imposition of a state income tax.

00:53:51.000 And the people joined me and we defeated that proposal.

00:53:56.000 Our state had to go through and do a reset at that point in time, reduce the budget, kind of skinny up some of the bureaucracy.

00:54:05.000 And because of that, and because we have no state income tax and never will, we became one of the best in class for business, for jobs, for company relocations, best place to live, to work, to rear your family.

00:54:23.000 And now is the opportunity to build on that, to reset as power comes back from the federal government.

00:54:31.000 It is going to be an exciting time to lead a state.

00:54:36.000 Well, I mean, that certainly drives.

00:54:37.000 We moved our company from California.

00:54:39.000 We all over the country, moved our company to Tennessee specifically for those reasons.

00:54:43.000 So as governor, what are the agenda items?

00:54:45.000 What are the things that you'd like to change that you think need to be strengthened?

00:54:49.000 Yes, and the top three issues with Tennesseans are the economy and making certain we keep taxes low and government efficient and that we are bringing jobs, next generation jobs, world-class jobs, and having workforce education so that we have the workforce trained for those advanced manufacturing jobs that are coming back to the country.

00:55:16.000 That requires the second thing they're talking about, world-class education for our children and making certain that there are opportunities that are opened for our kids so that our kids can dream those big dreams and right here in Tennessee, make those dreams come true.

00:55:36.000 And the third thing we hear a lot about is crime and immigration, public safety.

00:55:41.000 People are very concerned about crime.

00:55:43.000 You look at what has happened in Memphis and the crime rates that are there.

00:55:48.000 People want to see the crime under control.

00:55:52.000 And this ties into immigration and some of the gangs and traffickers that have entered the country during the Biden administration.

00:56:00.000 People want them out.

00:56:02.000 They want them gone.

00:56:03.000 Another thing we hear about, and the fourth component, is access to affordable health care.

00:56:10.000 And Tennessee is truly a health care hub.

00:56:14.000 When you look at the innovation that is taking place in the mid-state area, having the ability to change how people access health care because of the way CMS and Dr. Oz and Secretary Kennedy are sending the power back to the states on that delivery.

00:56:37.000 So, you know, you've been doing a lot of these things at the federal level, obviously, and clearing the way for, as you say, states to be able to pick up the baton and run with it.

00:56:45.000 So let's talk about your record in the Senate because obviously a really good record to run on.

00:56:48.000 So you've been in the Senate since 2019, and the last couple of years in particular have been very, very strong.

00:56:55.000 President Trump, last six months particularly, have been incredibly strong for the U.S. Senate.

00:57:00.000 It's been kind of amazing to watch.

00:57:02.000 Actually, we had Senator Scott on earlier and he was pointing out that, you know, you guys have a very slim majority.

00:57:08.000 You and I have been talking about this, a very slim majority, and say, yet you've been able to get done some pretty significant work for the American people.

00:57:15.000 We have.

00:57:15.000 It's been a very aggressive six months.

00:57:19.000 Thank goodness we have President Donald Trump.

00:57:22.000 And he really has set the agenda.

00:57:24.000 He did that during the campaign.

00:57:26.000 He made promises, and it's been up to us to help keep those promises.

00:57:32.000 We have been in session longer than any Senate in history, 750 hours so far.

00:57:41.000 We've taken over 450 votes and we approved President Trump's cabinet in record time.

00:57:50.000 We got the big, beautiful bill through.

00:57:52.000 And look at everything we got into that, the largest tax cut in U.S. history.

00:57:59.000 We also restored R ⁇ D. We restored bonus depreciation and interest expensing, 199A pass-throughs for our small businesses.

00:58:11.000 We were able to do no tax on tips or overtime.

00:58:15.000 And my provision, removing the income tax off Social Security for a nation seniors, I also had a provision in there that is employer-provided child care tax credit.

00:58:30.000 And we have that for small, medium, and large businesses to incentivize employers to provide child care for their workforce.

00:58:40.000 The death tax, being able to lift that exemption to $15 million per individual, that allows your farmers and your small business owners to pass on those assets and those businesses to the next generation.

00:59:01.000 Yeah, so when you look at all that record and look at what you could do in the state, I mean, I think that what you're talking about, the power reverting back to the states, I think it's not just important now.

00:59:08.000 It's important now, but President Trump is president.

00:59:11.000 It became really important as we saw during COVID and in the days afterward when Joe Biden became president, that the power reverting back to the states.

00:59:18.000 The states are the bulwark against a future that is uncertain.

00:59:22.000 I mean, hopefully Republicans retain power, continue to do great things.

00:59:26.000 But if a Democrat becomes president of the United States, then having a Republican governor like you in Tennessee obviously is going to make all the difference for the state.

00:59:32.000 It will indeed, because you can continue to push those provisions forward that President Trump has returned to the states.

00:59:41.000 And you look at energy.

00:59:43.000 As we talk about having hyperscalers and energy needs and so many people moving to Tennessee, that increases the need for electric power generation and having that baseload power and being able to innovate in the states and also permitting and regulation.

01:00:04.000 As the president pushes for one-stop permitting and simplified regulation, then a state like Tennessee that has Oak Ridge National Labs, that has the TVA, we should be the nation's leader in how you innovate in power generation.

01:00:23.000 So while you're running for governor, obviously you're still serving in the Senate.

01:00:27.000 So what can we expect from the Senate in the next couple of years?

01:00:30.000 Obviously, it's a rough road because you have to use reconciliation in order to get pretty much anything done.

01:00:34.000 Well, and what we're doing is moving forward, let me lay out a couple of things that we are hard at work on.

01:00:40.000 One is protections for consumers and children in the virtual space.

01:00:45.000 We have never passed a federally preemptive online privacy policy.

01:00:53.000 That is something that has just not gotten done.

01:00:56.000 And we're determined.

01:00:58.000 I'm chairman of privacy, technology, and the law at the Senate Judiciary Committee.

01:01:05.000 Amy Klobuchar out of Minnesota is the ranking member there.

01:01:09.000 We are working on a broad-based privacy bill.

01:01:14.000 We also have AI protections that we are doing for our entertainers and artists and podcasters and people that do training online, being able to protect their name, image, likeness, and voice.

01:01:32.000 And we'll get that pushed through the Kids Online Safety Act that Senator Blumenthal and I have done.

01:01:40.000 We should be able to get that across the finish line.

01:01:44.000 So working to get those done.

01:01:46.000 Now, you're also going to see us do a second reconciliation bill in the fall and a third one next year.

01:01:56.000 So continuing to do permanence on tax policy is going to be an imperative.

01:02:03.000 And we have a lot of ideas for tax credits and deductions that would help in Synth the economy, things that President Trump wants to move forward on.

01:02:15.000 We also are looking at some of this waste and fraud in Medicare and Medicaid and continuing to root that out.

01:02:25.000 Upcoding is a policy, a provision that people use to charge more for Medicare services.

01:02:34.000 You see a lot of this in Medicare Advantage.

01:02:36.000 We'll go after that.

01:02:39.000 We will go after ways that we're going to deal with strengthening the U.S. economy by getting the cost of living under control.

01:02:50.000 And we'll do some of this through taxes, tariffs, trade policy that the president is really leading on.

01:02:58.000 And what a difference that Is making for thousands of small business owners in Tennessee.

01:03:05.000 Being able to get the taxes lower, being able to have a broader-based and fair tariff policy that is not going to hurt our manufacturers, but is going to help them do manufacturing here in the USA.

01:03:23.000 So, are you concerned at all about the tariff policies?

01:03:26.000 Obviously, the tariffs are much, much higher than they've been in decades in the United States.

01:03:30.000 It's certainly a heterodox move by President Trump to sort of reset the table with regard to tariffs.

01:03:35.000 The data is still sort of coming in.

01:03:37.000 Obviously, the jobs report this month was weak.

01:03:40.000 The revisions from the last couple of months were weak.

01:03:42.000 I've said before, I think the president is a pragmatist, and if things don't look the way he wants them to, then he sort of shifts policy.

01:03:47.000 Are you keeping an eye on that?

01:03:48.000 Are you concerned about that at all?

01:03:50.000 Well, I think you have to look at a couple of things.

01:03:53.000 Number one, we had the first budget surplus we've had in over three decades in the month of June.

01:04:01.000 And that happened because of the tariff policy.

01:04:06.000 And the second thing on the jobs numbers, what you have to look at is the fact that the federal government, your state governments, and your local governments have started to review their bureaucracy and to eliminate positions that are no longer necessary and to utilize technology.

01:04:27.000 That's a good thing.

01:04:29.000 That saves the taxpayer money.

01:04:32.000 And President Trump is working us through this transition, freezing federal hiring, making certain that the bureaucracy is skinnying up, closing down the U.S. Department of Education.

01:04:48.000 And Secretary McMahon is doing a masterful job there.

01:04:52.000 You look at what Secretary Rollins is doing at USDA.

01:04:57.000 They've sent about half their employees out of D.C. and into offices across the country.

01:05:06.000 So as you do this reset, of course, you're not going to have those government jobs, which look at the Biden years and the reports there.

01:05:16.000 They bolstered their employment numbers by hiring, having people hired by government entities.

01:05:25.000 So obviously, it's going to be a fascinating race.

01:05:29.000 You're the frontrunner by far.

01:05:31.000 President Trump, obviously, and you get along very, very famously.

01:05:35.000 So presumably, President Trump is going to come down and campaign for you, I assume.

01:05:39.000 Well, we're working hard every single day to make certain that we earn that support from President Trump.

01:05:47.000 Indeed, I have worked very closely with him since that 2016 campaign.

01:05:53.000 And as you look at his first administration and now the first six months of this second administration, we have gotten so much done for the American people and will continue to do that.

01:06:09.000 And then with our states, being able to scoop up what he is sending back to the states and local governments and make certain we cement that conservative approach, that conservative agenda.

01:06:23.000 This is something that is going to get our country back on the right track.

01:06:27.000 America first, America prosperous, America safe, America healthy.

01:06:33.000 And we want that for our states.

01:06:35.000 I want it for our people here in Tennessee.

01:06:38.000 And Ben, I really think Tennessee has the potential to be our nation's conservative leader.

01:06:46.000 And that is my goal.

01:06:47.000 Well, Senator, good luck on the gubernatorial campaign.

01:06:50.000 Where should people go if they wish to support?

01:06:52.000 MarshaBlackburn.com.

01:06:54.000 Okay, folks, go check it out.

01:06:55.000 Marshablackburn.com.

01:06:56.000 Thanks so much for taking the time.

01:06:58.000 I'm delighted to join you.

01:06:59.000 Thank you.

01:07:00.000 All righty, folks, the show is continuing for our members right now.

01:07:04.000 The DHS is promoting new incentives to increase ICE recruitment, getting creative out there.

01:07:09.000 Remember, in order to watch, you have to be a member.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - August 07, 2025

America Needs Big Balls, NOT Mahmoud Khalil

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