The Ben Shapiro Show - Biden Was Senile, Had CANCER, And They Knew!

00:00:00.000 Folks, an enormous amount coming up on today's show.

00:00:02.000 Joe Biden has deadly cancer.

00:00:04.000 How long did he have it and who knew?

00:00:06.000 Plus, tape has emerged of him being senile in 2023.

00:00:10.000 Everybody knew.

00:00:12.000 Plus, we'll get to the economy and all of the controversy around it.

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00:00:43.000 Folks, what we are watching right now is one of the most cynical uncoverings of scandal in the history of American politics.

00:00:49.000 It really is an amazing, amazing thing.

00:00:51.000 So why don't we begin with this?

00:00:53.000 Obviously, our hearts go out to the former president.

00:00:55.000 Of the United States, Joe Biden has been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer.

00:01:00.000 The diagnosis, of course, has now been revealed just months after he left office.

00:01:05.000 And everybody has been expressing their good wishes for the Biden family and for Joe Biden personally.

00:01:11.000 Obviously, the announcement of stage four cancer, which is what Joe Biden apparently has, it's metastatic prostate cancer that moved apparently from the prostate all the way into his bones.

00:01:20.000 It's an aggressive form of prostate cancer.

00:01:23.000 The statement went out 3.56 p.m.

00:01:25.000 Sunday afternoon.

00:01:27.000 Apparently, having been seen by medical professionals earlier last week for a finding of a prostate nodule, he was diagnosed Friday with stage 4 prostate cancer with metastasis to the bone, an aggressive form of the disease.

00:01:38.000 There's a 10-point scale, the so-called Gleason score.

00:01:40.000 He has a 9 on a 10-point scale.

00:01:43.000 It doesn't mean that he is definitely terminal.

00:01:46.000 Prostate cancer moves slowly.

00:01:48.000 Metastatic means that, of course, it has moved already from its original source to someplace else in the body.

00:01:53.000 Once you have cancer in your bones, obviously the prognosis is not good.

00:01:57.000 It doesn't mean it's necessarily deadly in the next couple of months or anything like that.

00:02:02.000 Barack Obama put out a statement saying, Michelle and I are thinking of the entire Biden family.

00:02:06.000 Joseph Feiter, I know he will face this challenge with the same strength, resilience, and optimism that have always defined his life.

00:02:11.000 That is Kamala Harris.

00:02:13.000 Donald Trump, President Trump wrote on Truth Social.

00:02:16.000 Melania and I are saddened to hear about Joe Biden's recent medical diagnosis.

00:02:18.000 We extend our warmest and best wishes to Jill and the family, and we'll show a fast and successful recovery.

00:02:23.000 Now, obviously, everybody's heart goes out to somebody who is stricken with cancer.

00:02:29.000 We have to ask the obvious question.

00:02:31.000 Who knew this, and when did they know this?

00:02:34.000 Prostate cancer is not a fast-moving cancer.

00:02:36.000 Prostate cancer usually takes years to develop to the point of metastasis.

00:02:40.000 It is a very slow-moving cancer, actually.

00:02:43.000 Which is why, usually, I ask my doctor wife about this, when it comes to sort of standard of care, there's a little bit more wiggle room on when prostate exams are done or when PSA tests are done, which is effectively a form of blood test in which they can see certain elevated counts that lead to a suspicion that you may have cancer or not.

00:03:05.000 But when I asked my wife about this yesterday, She said, when was his last physical, his last recorded physical?

00:03:11.000 The answer was February 2024 was his last recorded physical.

00:03:13.000 His last recorded physical did not include a PSA test.

00:03:17.000 She said, that's definitely weird.

00:03:19.000 I mean, he's the president of the United States, so you would do as much of a workup panel as you possibly could.

00:03:23.000 This is not like your average 82-year-old guy or 81-year-old guy, where, okay, maybe you check for PSA, maybe you don't.

00:03:29.000 In fact, as people get older, sometimes people don't check the PSA because it's such a slow-moving cancer that the suggestion is.

00:03:36.000 That by the time the cancer actually would kill you, you'd be dead anyway of old age.

00:03:41.000 With that said, as people are living older and older, if you're in your 80s, there's a pretty good shot that they're going to do a PSA.

00:03:47.000 So I didn't want to rely on just my own medical expertise or my wife's medical expertise.

00:03:52.000 I also asked our friends and sponsors at Perplexity, given the fact that President Biden was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer with metastasis to his bones, how long was he likely suffering from cancer before his May 2025?

00:04:04.000 Also, what is the standard for PSA testing for men above the age of 50 in the United States?

00:04:08.000 So here is what perplexity tells me.

00:04:11.000 Former President Biden was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer with bone metastasis in May 2025, characterized by a Gleason score of 9, indicating a highly aggressive cancer.

00:04:20.000 While the exact timeline of his cancer progression is unclear, metastatic prostate cancer typically develops over several years.

00:04:26.000 High-grade cancers often progress faster, with studies suggesting metastasis can occur within 2 to 5 years if untreated.

00:04:34.000 Again, two to five years.

00:04:35.000 This didn't develop over the course of the last year.

00:04:38.000 Biden's diagnosis followed increasing urinary symptoms and the discovery of a prostate nodule, which underscores the importance of early detection.

00:04:44.000 So, what are the standards?

00:04:45.000 Well, it turns out that the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force says there are individualized decisions for age 55 to 69 and no routine screening after 70, but Medicare covers annual PSA tests for anyone over 50. Medicare.

00:05:01.000 And as my wife, I did ask her, you know, PSA testing.

00:05:05.000 She's a family physician.

00:05:07.000 She said, literally every physical that I did for anybody over the age of 50, I recommended that they may as well get a PSA test.

00:05:13.000 So it beggars the imagination that Joe Biden did not have one.

00:05:17.000 The notion that there was no knowledge whatsoever of developing cancer in Joe Biden for years on end, and we only found out about this, is only diagnosed at stage four.

00:05:26.000 Typically, when you have a stage four cancer diagnosis, and it's sudden, it is not a prostate cancer diagnosis.

00:05:33.000 Much faster form of cancer that has developed.

00:05:36.000 And again, this is not just me saying this because I am not a doctor, but you know who is a doctor?

00:05:41.000 Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel is the left's favorite doctor.

00:05:44.000 He's one of the designers of Obamacare.

00:05:45.000 And he appeared on Morning Joe this morning.

00:05:48.000 And here is what he had to say about when Joe Biden and family and people around him would have known about a deadly cancer forming inside the president.

00:05:56.000 And this raises all sorts of questions about number one.

00:05:59.000 When people knew.

00:06:00.000 Number two, if they didn't know, were they deliberately avoiding tests that theoretically could have led to a better standard of care for the president of the United States in order to get him through the election?

00:06:11.000 This all ties into the broader scandal about the fact that he's obviously in the mid-stages of senility.

00:06:17.000 They knew this during the campaign.

00:06:19.000 There was open talk of him having to use a wheelchair after he was elected.

00:06:22.000 And so, again, this announcement actually raises more questions than it answers.

00:06:26.000 If the idea here was that they were going to drop this cancer announcement, As a way of sort of distracting from the questions about his senility.

00:06:33.000 And again, that theory is out there.

00:06:35.000 And that theory is not totally crazy, considering the fact that you have people like David Axelrod openly suggesting that now would be an amazing time to stop talking about all of this.

00:06:44.000 Because obviously you have a president who's ailing, and that's really bad.

00:06:49.000 And so you have people literally saying, like David Axelrod, the former Obama advisor, that we should stop talking about his senility because he has cancer.

00:06:59.000 Ridiculous.

00:06:59.000 That's ridiculous.

00:07:00.000 Actually, this creates more questions.

00:07:03.000 I mean, this is a scandal.

00:07:04.000 I'm sorry.

00:07:04.000 It's just an absolute scandal.

00:07:06.000 Everybody knew in 2020 that Joe Biden was not full well.

00:07:09.000 Everyone knew this.

00:07:10.000 And then we were told by the media for years he was not senile.

00:07:13.000 There was no evidence of senility.

00:07:14.000 And now we're finding out, of course, not only was he senile, everybody knew he was senile, as we'll see in a moment.

00:07:19.000 There's actual tape of him in an interview with special prosecutor Robert Herr.

00:07:24.000 This was the tape.

00:07:25.000 That made Robert Hur say, we can't prosecute this guy because he's too senile.

00:07:28.000 And the Democrats at the time said, no, no, no, no, no.

00:07:31.000 That's Robert Hur being a jerk.

00:07:33.000 That's terrible that Robert Hur would say that.

00:07:34.000 So they all knew he was senile.

00:07:36.000 Now the question is, do they all know that he had cancer?

00:07:38.000 Or if they didn't know that he had cancer, how did nobody know that he had cancer?

00:07:41.000 This is, again, not a fast-moving form of cancer.

00:07:44.000 This is the kind of cancer that it takes 10 years to develop.

00:07:46.000 That's not me saying that.

00:07:47.000 That is Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel saying that.

00:07:49.000 Here he was on MSNBC.

00:07:51.000 Doesn't it take some time for prostate cancer to develop to a point where it would spread to the bones?

00:08:00.000 Oh, he's had this for many years, maybe even a decade, growing there and spreading.

00:08:08.000 That's right.

00:08:10.000 It's a little surprising.

00:08:11.000 I look back at the records and there's no evidence that when he got his health status and the medical records were released that he had a prostate-specific antigen.

00:08:23.000 Now, it is true that a lot of people recommend not doing a prostate-specific antigen after 70. That is crazy.

00:08:45.000 Okay, he's saying what I was saying a moment ago, which is he was the vice president of the United States.

00:08:50.000 Then he was the president of the United States.

00:08:51.000 The notion that you would not do a PSA test, which is a very easy test to do.

00:08:55.000 You wouldn't do a PSA test on the sitting president of the United States.

00:08:59.000 A person who, by the way, Apparently, he had a history of cancer.

00:09:02.000 Joe Biden himself said in 2022.

00:09:04.000 He said he had cancer in 2022.

00:09:06.000 And then they said, oh, he meant that a while ago he had skin cancer.

00:09:09.000 Is that what he meant?

00:09:10.000 Is that what he meant?

00:09:11.000 Here he was in 2022.

00:09:13.000 And because it was a four-lane highway that was accessible, my mother drove us, and rather than us be able to walk.

00:09:22.000 And guess what?

00:09:23.000 The first frost, you know what was happening.

00:09:26.000 You had to put on your windshield wipers to get literally the oil slick off the window.

00:09:32.000 That's why I and so damn many other people I grew up have cancer.

00:09:37.000 Um, what?

00:09:39.000 What?

00:09:40.000 I mean, he said that in 2020, and everybody went, wait, what is he talking about right now?

00:09:45.000 Which, what, what now?

00:09:47.000 Huh?

00:09:47.000 Well, which cancer was he talking about?

00:09:50.000 Okay, beyond that.

00:09:51.000 Here is the bottom line for all of this.

00:09:53.000 These questions are perfectly legitimate.

00:09:55.000 The entire media are going to now mobilize to say you cannot ask these questions.

00:09:58.000 A tragedy has occurred.

00:09:59.000 You cannot ask these questions.

00:10:00.000 Absolutely, you can ask these questions.

00:10:02.000 Absolutely, you should ask these questions because we now have a series of questions.

00:10:07.000 Dr. Jill Biden, she was there the whole time.

00:10:11.000 She knew.

00:10:12.000 She doesn't have any excuses.

00:10:14.000 She knew he was going senile.

00:10:16.000 Everyone knew he was going senile.

00:10:17.000 And yet she continued like Edith Wilson to promote. 0.53

00:10:20.000 His presidential candidacy the entire time.

00:10:22.000 I mean, two weeks ago, she had him out on tour on The View.

00:10:27.000 He was doddering.

00:10:28.000 He could barely speak a sentence.

00:10:29.000 And she was finishing his sentences on The View.

00:10:31.000 She was still trotting him out.

00:10:32.000 What kind of person does that to their ailing husband? 1.00

00:10:35.000 Who does that?

00:10:36.000 That's wild.

00:10:37.000 Where's the rest of Joe Biden's family?

00:10:39.000 Where's Hunter?

00:10:40.000 Where's beloved Hunter in all of this?

00:10:42.000 Where are his kids?

00:10:44.000 Why was there no one around him to say, no, you can't do this?

00:10:48.000 Not just on the basis.

00:10:50.000 Of his senility.

00:10:51.000 But now, maybe on the basis of the fact that he apparently has a deadly cancer.

00:10:55.000 The overall chance that a person diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer is alive after five years around 37%, according to the American Cancer Society.

00:11:03.000 So who knew this?

00:11:04.000 When did they know this?

00:11:05.000 Why did we not know this?

00:11:07.000 And by the way, who the hell was president for the last several years?

00:11:10.000 I mean, that's a serious question.

00:11:12.000 He had physical problems.

00:11:13.000 He had mental problems.

00:11:15.000 And we were told the Democratic Party tried to make this person president for another full term.

00:11:19.000 They tried to make him president for another full term.

00:11:23.000 How delusional is this?

00:11:25.000 So delusional that some people still have the delusion.

00:11:28.000 James Clyburn, who is the congressman from South Carolina, who more than any other person made sure that Joe Biden was the nominee in 2020 as opposed to Bernie Sanders.

00:11:37.000 Yesterday, he said that Joe Biden was fit for four more years.

00:11:41.000 By what standard was Joe Biden fit for four more days?

00:11:44.000 Here was James Clyburn.

00:11:47.000 Do you think that Joe Biden really would have been able to perform as president all the way through January 2029, when he would be 86?

00:12:00.000 Yes, I thought that back then.

00:12:02.000 I still think that, but I don't know that.

00:12:07.000 When people ask me, did I know this or did I know the other?

00:12:11.000 And the fact of the matter is, no, I didn't.

00:12:13.000 And you make my point here.

00:12:15.000 So it's not all about age.

00:12:18.000 I've seen people develop Alzheimer's when they're in their 30s and 40s.

00:12:25.000 So it's not about age.

00:12:26.000 It's about the ability to do the job.

00:12:29.000 And I never saw anything that allowed me to think that Joe Biden was not able to do the job.

00:12:38.000 Okay, so, I mean, my goodness.

00:12:40.000 My goodness.

00:12:40.000 And we'll get to the senility issue in just a minute because all this stuff ties together.

00:12:44.000 Again, there were people who actually were talking about this a while ago.

00:12:48.000 There were people who were talking about this in 2024.

00:12:51.000 So, for example, there was, in fact, a report in 2024 of a serious medical issue involving Joe Biden.

00:13:00.000 It's from July 22nd, 2024.

00:13:03.000 Jordan Schachtel reporting that President Biden began his campaign trip in Las Vegas.

00:13:08.000 But the day before he abruptly left town, he delivered a keynote address in front of a packed crowd of 5,000 people at the NAACP National Convention at the Mandalay Bay Hotel.

00:13:16.000 He was scheduled to deliver the keynote at another annual convention at the MGM Grand, but he didn't appear at the convention or any of his scheduled events later that afternoon.

00:13:24.000 Instead, he left town, departing Las Vegas on Air Force One for a Hobo Beach, Delaware, where he remained.

00:13:30.000 Since that trip, he had announced over social media he would not seek a second term as president.

00:13:35.000 So they suggested it was because of COVID-19.

00:13:38.000 But actually, as Charlie Kirk at the time had reported, he said he got a call from a source close to Las Vegas Metro.

00:13:46.000 The official story was that Biden's trip was cut short because of COVID.

00:13:49.000 But according to the source, U.S. Secret Service informed Las Vegas Metro there was an emergency situation involving Joe Biden and that they had to close necessary streets so the president could be transported immediately to University Medical, which they began to do in earnest.

00:14:03.000 And then there was a stand-down order.

00:14:05.000 And Secret Service informed local Vegas PD they were going to fly the president to Johns Hopkins back east.

00:14:11.000 Apparently, the rumor mill in the police department was that Joe Biden was dying or possibly already dead.

00:14:16.000 Laura Loomer, of course, also tweeted at the time, suggesting that the president had a terminal illness.

00:14:22.000 So again, who knew what when?

00:14:25.000 I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe, like bordering on the impossible, to believe that no one knew about Joe Biden and his cancer.

00:14:34.000 Until, like, last week.

00:14:36.000 I find that impossible to believe.

00:14:39.000 Truly.

00:14:40.000 That is a slow-moving cancer.

00:14:42.000 This is a president who must have been tested over and over.

00:14:45.000 By the way, we should change the law.

00:14:47.000 Seriously.

00:14:48.000 The law should be changed with regard to presidential health advisories and notifications and public disclosure.

00:14:57.000 It is not just a matter of medical privacy.

00:15:01.000 How the president is doing.

00:15:02.000 That is a matter of national security and it matters to the American voters.

00:15:06.000 The president should be required, should, of both parties, the president should be required to make a full paneled health test every year.

00:15:14.000 And we should know about it.

00:15:15.000 We, the American people, we are owed that.

00:15:17.000 We should know whether the president has cancer.

00:15:19.000 We should know whether the president has a mental condition.

00:15:22.000 We should know whether the president has high blood pressure.

00:15:24.000 It shouldn't be up to the handpicked doctor of the president of the United States to cover up his health condition.

00:15:29.000 That is a violation of the bargain that the American people have with their elected leaders.

00:15:34.000 I mean, this is unbelievable, truly.

00:15:37.000 And again, that does not stand in the way of sympathy for a man who has cancer.

00:15:40.000 The question I have is, why didn't anyone seem to have sympathy for him over the course of the last two years when he was obviously ailing in the middle of public life?

00:15:48.000 It's unreal.

00:15:50.000 It's absolutely unreal.

00:15:52.000 And I just...

00:15:55.000 I don't believe the story.

00:15:56.000 Sorry, I don't.

00:15:57.000 I don't believe that you only found out that he had cancer last week.

00:16:00.000 Stage four metastatic prostate cancer that takes years to develop.

00:16:06.000 I do not believe that one of the most highly scrutinized people on planet Earth did not know that he had what is a fairly common cancer for people of his age.

00:16:16.000 I...

00:16:16.000 Nope, don't believe it.

00:16:18.000 We'll get to more on this in a moment.

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00:16:27.000 Companies buy this data to target you with ads, social media platforms, uses to control what content you see, and during elections, it's used to influence your vote.

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00:18:33.000 Okay, and this, again, ties into a broader cover-up, and that is the cover-up of his health condition, generally speaking.

00:18:39.000 So, to talk about that for a moment, Audio of former President Biden, his interview with Special Counsel Robert Herr, got a public airing on Friday afternoon.

00:18:48.000 So Axios originally posted some segments of this audio, and then they posted the full audio.

00:18:53.000 This, of course, is an interview that Joe Biden did with the Special Prosecutor Robert Herr.

00:18:58.000 You'll recall that the left went insane about this particular interview.

00:19:04.000 Why?

00:19:05.000 Well, because it turns out that Robert Herr, early on in 2024, put out...

00:19:10.000 An explanation for why Joe Biden was not being prosecuted for mishandling classified documents.

00:19:14.000 And in that document, where he explained why he wasn't going to prosecute Biden, he said, basically, people will see him in the jury as a well-meaning older man with memory issues, which is a very nice way of saying he's senile.

00:19:26.000 And the entire left went insane.

00:19:28.000 How dare Robert Herr say this?

00:19:29.000 Robert Herr must be some sort of Republican operative saying that the President of the United States has memory problems, that he's senile.

00:19:35.000 You might recall Tommy Vieter, Obama van driver and advisor, saying, quote, hers claim that Biden couldn't remember the day his son died was an outrageous lie.

00:19:44.000 It's also cruel and irrelevant.

00:19:45.000 Anyone who has experienced loss like that can remember images, smells, bits, Okay, and he was just one of the people who was leading the attack on Robert Herr for saying the perfectly obvious, which is that the President of the United States did not have a functioning brain.

00:20:03.000 Okay, well now we have the audio.

00:20:04.000 And guess what?

00:20:05.000 It turns out Robert Herr was actually understating the case.

00:20:08.000 Robert Herr was being kind.

00:20:10.000 He said that he was a well-meaning elderly man with memory issues.

00:20:13.000 No.

00:20:14.000 This is a person who clearly had senility.

00:20:17.000 Clearly and obviously.

00:20:19.000 And again, I ask the question, where was Dr. Jill?

00:20:21.000 Where was the rest of his family?

00:20:24.000 Honest to God.

00:20:26.000 Can you imagine the absolute and immoral corruption that it would take to have an ailing member of your family In the most visible position in the world, and you keep him out there because, what, you still need to clear some cash if you're a hunter, or you still need to get a part in, or you just really, really like the power and you really want to be the person who's signing the auto pen?

00:20:46.000 By the way, who the hell was signing the auto pen?

00:20:49.000 This is not a president who knew what he was doing.

00:20:51.000 Who was the actual president of the United States for the last two years of his administration?

00:20:54.000 Who?

00:20:55.000 That's a big unanswered question.

00:20:56.000 Who the hell was the president?

00:20:58.000 Because wasn't this guy?

00:20:59.000 Here was Joe Biden talking to Robert Herb.

00:21:03.000 and not remembering when his son died.

00:21:04.000 And so, what was happening though, one month ago died, May 30th, 2015, 2015, I think it was 2015.

00:21:22.000 I'm not sure the month served, I think it was.

00:21:25.000 That's right, Mr. President.

00:21:29.000 Oh my God.

00:21:31.000 He couldn't remember the year.

00:21:32.000 Forget about the month.

00:21:33.000 He couldn't remember the year that his son died.

00:21:36.000 I mean, now anybody, again, with sort of a functioning brain, can put that together.

00:21:41.000 Even if you forget for a moment, you can put that together pretty quickly.

00:21:43.000 If you ask me, for example, the year that my children were born, I can give you the years that my children were born and also the dates because I know my kids.

00:21:51.000 Okay, but that is not a matter of him struggling.

00:21:56.000 That is a matter of him not...

00:21:57.000 He has to be reminded by people around him the year his son died.

00:22:01.000 Again, I don't think that's because the images were so deeply ingrained in his memory that the dates didn't matter.

00:22:06.000 I think it's because he couldn't remember.

00:22:08.000 Here he was.

00:22:09.000 He can't remember when Donald Trump was elected.

00:22:11.000 Here's the audio.

00:22:12.000 And Trump gets elected in November of 2017.

00:22:19.000 2016.

00:22:22.000 All right.

00:22:23.000 So why did I have 2017 here?

00:22:30.000 That's when you left office in January of 2017.

00:22:33.000 Okay.

00:22:33.000 now.

00:22:34.000 you Thank you.

00:22:35.000 Thank you.

00:22:37.000 Unbelievable.

00:22:37.000 He has to be reminded why he has 2017 on the paper.

00:22:40.000 Even after he's told the date that Trump is elected, November 2016.

00:22:43.000 He says, well, why is it?

00:22:44.000 Why does it say on the paper?

00:22:46.000 This is someone who was ailing.

00:22:48.000 He was ailing in 2023.

00:22:51.000 Everyone knew it.

00:22:52.000 Everyone around him.

00:22:53.000 And his family put him out there anyway.

00:22:55.000 His staff put him out there anyway, by the way.

00:22:57.000 How much do they hate Kamala Harris? 0.98

00:22:59.000 My goodness.

00:23:00.000 They were so desperate to ensure that Kamala Harris was never president that they propped this person up as the president of the United States and tried to make him run for another term. 0.87

00:23:09.000 Remember, that is October of 2023.

00:23:11.000 That was a year before the next election, and they still tried to prop that guy up.

00:23:16.000 I have another question.

00:23:18.000 Who the hell around him allowed him to do that debate with Donald Trump?

00:23:21.000 I mean, you want to talk about political malpractice.

00:23:23.000 Who allowed him to do that?

00:23:26.000 That's insane.

00:23:27.000 He was out there going, I'm going to take on Donald.

00:23:29.000 And meanwhile, in the back room, they're all going, wait, wait.

00:23:31.000 This is the same guy who couldn't remember the year his son died or the year Donald Trump was elected.

00:23:35.000 He's going to take on Donald Trump in a debate?

00:23:38.000 Truly?

00:23:38.000 Like, that's it?

00:23:39.000 And remember, folks, if he had not fully collapsed in that debate, he still would have been running.

00:23:43.000 He never would have dropped.

00:23:45.000 Here was Joe Biden being totally unable to put together a coherent sentence in that special prosecutor interview.

00:23:57.000 That I was still in the Senate.

00:24:02.000 Anyway, excuse me.

00:24:04.000 Thank you.

00:24:09.000 There was pressure, not pressure.

00:24:12.000 Bo knew how much I adored him.

00:24:18.000 And maybe it sounds so...

00:24:25.000 Everybody knew how close you were.

00:24:27.000 There was not anybody in the world who wondered whether or not...

00:24:33.000 Anyway.

00:24:34.000 And so...

00:24:36.000 I'm wondering if this is a good time to take a break.

00:24:38.000 No, let me just keep going to get it done.

00:24:41.000 Thank you.

00:24:42.000 Thank you.

00:24:44.000 Okay, so literally, that sounds like Robert Hurst saying, sir, do you want a break at this point?

00:24:48.000 Guys, you're kind of falling apart here.

00:24:50.000 This was the person that they said was totally, and remember, the entire media.

00:24:54.000 Lied to you.

00:24:55.000 They lied.

00:24:55.000 Okay, because you can say they didn't know the specifics.

00:24:58.000 Fine.

00:24:58.000 They didn't know the specifics.

00:24:59.000 They saw the same thing we were saying, but they didn't just say what we were saying, which is this person appears to be ailing.

00:25:04.000 They said you were absolutely a Republican operative, vicious and mean if you pointed out what was perfectly obvious to the naked eye.

00:25:12.000 And they did so little investigation and so little investigative reporting that they tried to prop this person up until he himself had to drop out of the race because it became perfectly obvious to every sentient human being.

00:25:22.000 Exactly what was happening with Joe Biden during that debate with Donald Trump.

00:25:26.000 That's the scandal.

00:25:27.000 So you have a scandal along the line.

00:25:29.000 I mean, here's Joe Biden not being able to remember why he kept classified information.

00:25:34.000 Remember, this entire interview is why he had a bunch of classified information about Afghanistan in his library, like filed, and with top secret stamped on it.

00:25:42.000 And here he was.

00:25:45.000 Was this memo, Mr. President, was this something that you...

00:25:50.000 Consciously kept after your term as Vice President?

00:25:54.000 Is this something that you wanted to hold on to?

00:25:56.000 I don't recall.

00:25:58.000 Did I have this?

00:25:59.000 Was this in my possession, this memo?

00:26:01.000 Yes.

00:26:02.000 To give you some context for this, Mr. President, it was found in the front of this notebook that's on the first page, and the notebook was found in the library at the Lake House in one of the drawers.

00:26:15.000 I don't recall how it got back.

00:26:20.000 I don't recall how it got back in the book, because I sent it to the President, and I gave it to the President.

00:26:26.000 And this looks like the original.

00:26:28.000 I don't think it was made, it was a copy made of it, but I don't think so.

00:26:31.000 It was faxed.

00:26:33.000 Oh, okay, that's why.

00:26:35.000 Yeah.

00:26:35.000 Alright, now I got it.

00:26:37.000 I wasn't sure how I got it, whether I gave it to the President, but it was faxed to the President, which I had to copy.

00:26:44.000 Right.

00:26:44.000 Okay.

00:26:45.000 You had the original.

00:26:45.000 Yeah, I had the original, and I just put it in the book, and that was it.

00:26:48.000 Unbelievable.

00:26:49.000 Unbelievable.

00:26:50.000 Even today, the media are still covering this as though it's a Republicans pounce story.

00:26:54.000 That's the way the media work.

00:26:55.000 When Democrats do a bad thing, the story is Republicans pouncing.

00:26:58.000 When Republicans do a bad thing, the story is Republicans being bad.

00:27:00.000 When the Democrats do a bad thing, it's Republicans pouncing.

00:27:03.000 So here is Politico reporting.

00:27:04.000 The audio fed into ongoing Republican efforts to portray Biden as mentally unfit for the presidency at the end of his term.

00:27:10.000 And to allege that Democrats hid that fact from the public.

00:27:13.000 Oh, did it play into that?

00:27:14.000 Did it?

00:27:14.000 Well, I mean, I wonder how that could have happened.

00:27:17.000 Maybe because it's true.

00:27:19.000 Maybe because it's true.

00:27:21.000 And again, it is absolutely incredible to me that the media tried to cover this up.

00:27:25.000 The media tried to cover this up.

00:27:26.000 Everyone around him tried to cover it up.

00:27:28.000 I don't believe for a second that Jake Sullivan did not know that Joe Biden was senile.

00:27:31.000 I do not believe for a hot second that Mike Donilon didn't know that Joe Biden was senile.

00:27:35.000 I don't believe for a second that Joe Biden didn't know he was senile and that he likely had cancer.

00:27:39.000 I don't believe any of that stuff because I can't imagine in my own daily life dealing with people who are older than my parents.

00:27:47.000 10 years older than my parents, not knowing that stuff.

00:27:50.000 And first of all, let's just be real about this.

00:27:52.000 As you get older, I've noticed this.

00:27:54.000 It's just a regular thing in life.

00:27:56.000 As you get older, you end up talking about your health problems with your friends a lot.

00:27:58.000 Because as you get older, your body starts to not act the way that it was when you were 20 years old.

00:28:02.000 If you've ever been in a room with a bunch of 80-year-olds, half the conversation is about health.

00:28:06.000 Because it takes up a lot of their time and a lot of their life.

00:28:09.000 I understand.

00:28:09.000 I get it.

00:28:10.000 The notion that none of this ever came up around Joe Biden.

00:28:13.000 The most powerful person on planet Earth.

00:28:15.000 Honest to God, we are lucky the world didn't explode even worse than it did under Joe Biden.

00:28:19.000 When you listen to this, when you realize this health condition, we are honest to God lucky that China didn't go for Taiwan while Joe Biden was president.

00:28:29.000 We are lucky that Russia didn't actually try to break NATO outright, not just attack Ukraine, break NATO outright. 0.61

00:28:35.000 Because, my goodness, this is insane, totally insane.

00:28:40.000 President Trump asks a relevant question.

00:28:41.000 Whoever had control of the auto pen is looking to be a bigger and bigger scandal by the moment.

00:28:46.000 It is a major real part of the crime that the presidential election of 2020 was rigged and stolen.

00:28:50.000 Millions and millions of people knew that Okay, so.

00:29:11.000 Again, the 2020 election stuff, about it being rigged and all that, again, you can say that it was rigged in the sort of informal sense, that you had the media covering things up that were relevant about Joe Biden, and that part's true.

00:29:20.000 If what he means is that votes were changed, again, that's not the issue here.

00:29:24.000 The real question is, who was the president of the United States?

00:29:28.000 Who was it?

00:29:30.000 I want to know.

00:29:32.000 Everyone ought to know.

00:29:34.000 Van Jones, maybe the last honest Democrat, he said yesterday, we're going to pay for this cover-up for a very long time as a party.

00:29:41.000 I was shocked to see his condition when he came out, and so was the world.

00:29:46.000 And that wasn't the first time he was in that condition.

00:29:48.000 The book makes it very, very clear.

00:29:50.000 There are people who knew and said nothing.

00:29:53.000 And that is a crime against this republic.

00:29:57.000 And I think the Democrats are going to pay for a long time for being a part of what is now being revealed to be a massive cover-up.

00:30:06.000 Okay, and Van Jones, again, he's being honest about that.

00:30:09.000 I've never had a conversation with Van.

00:30:10.000 In the middle of the campaign, he was saying the same things.

00:30:13.000 So Van has been honest about this for a very, very long time.

00:30:15.000 Speaking of people who are not honest about this, Senator Chris Murphy, who's attempting a quixotic 2028 candidacy, he was saying that the reason that Donald Trump is in the White House is because the Democrats didn't have the balls to oust Biden.

00:30:26.000 Now, there is some truth to that.

00:30:28.000 Imagine for a second that Joe Biden had actually been ousted from the presidency, not in the middle of 2024, but like in the middle of 2023, when everybody knew that he was gone.

00:30:39.000 It turns out it was earlier than that.

00:30:40.000 Imagine that Joe Biden, two years into his presidency, had stepped out.

00:30:43.000 Kamala Harris becomes the president.

00:30:44.000 And now you have open primaries in 2024.

00:30:48.000 Does that change the trajectory?

00:30:49.000 I think Donald Trump still wins.

00:30:50.000 But he's not wrong.

00:30:51.000 The Democrats tried to push this horse over the finish line. 0.85

00:30:55.000 They propped El Cid, like almost literally a dead body, on the horse.

00:30:59.000 And it turns out that it didn't work because then Kamala Harris actually got her shot and she lost anyway in the most humiliating electoral defeat maybe of all time. 0.97

00:31:06.000 Here is Senator Chris Murphy.

00:31:08.000 But ultimately, in retrospect, you can't defend what the Democratic Party did because we are stuck with a madman, with a corrupt president in the Oval Office, and we should have given ourselves a better chance to win.

00:31:21.000 Okay, I mean, the fact that he's admitting it is kind of the whole thing.

00:31:27.000 Everyone, everyone knew on a sort of colloquial, casual level what was going on.

00:31:31.000 But now, what we are learning about the president's mental state...

00:31:35.000 What we are learning about the fact that he had, in fact, a slow-developing, now-deadly cancer.

00:31:41.000 Deep immorality.

00:31:43.000 It's not just political malpractice, which of course it is.

00:31:45.000 It is deep immorality.

00:31:48.000 Lying to the American people in this way is deeply immoral.

00:31:52.000 Using an old man who is clearly in ailing mental and physical health in order to get done your political job is just vile. 0.93

00:32:01.000 It really is.

00:32:02.000 And everyone around him...

00:32:04.000 Everyone who knew, everybody who enabled this should be put out to political pasture as soon as humanly possible.

00:32:09.000 I'm not just talking about members of the family, obviously, who will be.

00:32:11.000 I'm talking about all the senators, all the congresspeople, all the political advisors.

00:32:17.000 This is a stain on the Democratic Party.

00:32:19.000 It should be.

00:32:19.000 It's a stain on the media.

00:32:21.000 I mean, you wonder why the media's trust numbers have collapsed.

00:32:23.000 This is the reason the media's trust numbers have collapsed.

00:32:26.000 Because for several years, anytime anyone said, hey, why don't you look into that?

00:32:29.000 Like, no, no, it's Republicans pouncing.

00:32:32.000 Again, it was never Republicans pouncing.

00:32:34.000 And the saddest question, the one that honestly you have to ask, but it's really sad you even have to ask this, is if Joe Biden now has stage four deadly cancer, two-thirds of people who have it die within five years, according to the stats.

00:32:48.000 And if this was slow developing, one of two things is true.

00:32:51.000 Either they knew, and then how did they treat him if they knew?

00:32:56.000 Was he getting treatment all the time he was in the White House?

00:32:58.000 Who was doing that treatment?

00:32:59.000 How did that not leak?

00:33:02.000 That's number one.

00:33:03.000 The best possible scenario here, just on a moral level, is that they knew and that they got him the treatment that he needed and the cancer just is winning.

00:33:10.000 That's the best possible.

00:33:11.000 And then there's the worst possible moral outcome, which is they knew he was ailing, they knew he was old, and they either specifically did not test him or they did test him and didn't get him the treatment he needed because they needed him to remain in the presidency.

00:33:22.000 And that one is like the darkest possible moral scenario here.

00:33:25.000 And all these questions are on the table and they should be on the table and pretending that it's some sort.

00:33:30.000 Of grave evil to even ask the question is nonsense.

00:33:33.000 It's nonsense.

00:33:34.000 As you know, I'm not in the business of just asking questions here on the show.

00:33:37.000 I don't like just asking questions, meaning like throwing out speculation without any proper proof.

00:33:41.000 Okay, the medical evidence suggests, not according to me, according to every doctor that I've talked to, this thing was slow developing, which means there was ample time to diagnose many people who could have known.

00:33:53.000 So either they did not do the PSA test because for whatever reason they decided they didn't want to know the answer.

00:33:59.000 Or they did the PSA test and they probably knew the answer and then things get even darker from there.

00:34:05.000 This is an evidence-based question, not a question of just total speculation.

00:34:10.000 And it implicates everyone around him.

00:34:13.000 Between the cancer story and the senility story, this is a nuclear bomb at the heart of the Democratic Party and the heart of the media.

00:34:20.000 And it absolutely should be treated as such.

00:34:22.000 We'll get to more on this in just one moment.

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00:36:41.000 Meanwhile, the questions about the economy remain at kind of a significant high at this point.

00:36:47.000 Moody's put out a downgrade of American debt yesterday.

00:36:51.000 That downgrade in the credit rating was based on the fact that Moody's is saying that we are just going to continue to blow out our debt.

00:36:59.000 That obviously is true, but that's been true for a very long time.

00:37:02.000 Moody's does have a political angle to it.

00:37:04.000 There's just no question about this.

00:37:05.000 Moody's is constantly moving its ratings up and down in response to sort of Political politics that you can best describe as a sort of center-left take on the world.

00:37:14.000 This notion that the debt was great, and now that the Republicans are going to pass a tax bill that basically continues the trajectory of debt along the lines it already was, that really sinks the credit rating, that, of course, is really silly.

00:37:24.000 Now, do we have a massive debt problem right now?

00:37:27.000 Absolutely.

00:37:28.000 The 30-year yield on bonds right now is really high, like around 5%, meaning that that is the rate that investors are basically charging the government to take a 30-year bond.

00:37:39.000 which means significant uncertainty as to whether they're going to get paid back in inflated dollars or whether it's even worthwhile to buy a 30-year bond.

00:37:45.000 That means that there's not a lot of faith in the markets that 30 years from now the United States is going to have paid off its debt in fiscally responsible fashion.

00:37:53.000 Now the Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, he says that Moody's is a lagging First of all, I think that Moody's is a lagging indicator.

00:38:04.000 I think that's what everyone thinks of.

00:38:07.000 Okay, it may be a lagging indicator, but it is also true the United States has a massive debt problem that will be solved by neither party.

00:38:26.000 Basically, the Republicans and Democrats have decided that when it comes to the debt, they're just going to shift around the chairs on the deck of the Titanic and fight over who gets to do the shifting.

00:38:34.000 To be perfectly frank about all of this, The death of the Tea Party, the much derided Paul Ryan.

00:38:40.000 Paul Ryan actually cared about this stuff.

00:38:41.000 He might be the last Republican leader who truly cared about this stuff in a serious way.

00:38:45.000 And that was considered insufficient to the day.

00:38:47.000 And so he was ousted.

00:38:49.000 Meanwhile, Walmart has been warning that prices are likely going to rise because of the tariffs, which is, of course, true.

00:38:56.000 When you artificially increase the price of your inputs, then the price of goods tends to rise as well.

00:39:03.000 So President Trump put out a statement.

00:39:05.000 Again, we may have to bring back good Trump, bad Trump here because, again, he's doing so many things every single day that there's a solid mix of good and bad from President Trump.

00:39:14.000 This one definitely falls into the bad Trump category.

00:39:17.000 President Trump put out a statement that says, quote, Walmart should stop trying to blame tariffs as the reason for rising prices throughout the chain.

00:39:23.000 Walmart made billions of dollars last year, far more than expected.

00:39:26.000 Between Walmart and China, they should, as is said, eat the tariffs and not charge valued customers anything.

00:39:31.000 I'll be watching, and so will your customers.

00:39:34.000 Okay, Bernie Sanders, calm down there.

00:39:37.000 I'm sorry that price mechanisms work according to market principles and that if you artificially boost the prices people have to pay for things, when they then use those things to sell to someone else, the prices go up.

00:39:47.000 That, of course, is the predictable result of artificially increasing the price of anything.

00:39:51.000 It's that further down in the chain, prices are going to rise.

00:39:54.000 And yelling at people for prices rising is not good economic policy.

00:39:58.000 It's not good political policy.

00:39:59.000 I'm old enough to remember when Barack Obama did the exact same thing.

00:40:02.000 There were people...

00:40:03.000 When Obamacare was first passed, who had put on bills how much more you were paying for things because of Obamacare.

00:40:09.000 And the Obama administration got really mad.

00:40:11.000 They're like, how dare you inform people that their prices are going up because of Obamacare?

00:40:15.000 And the answer was, well, yeah, because you just stacked a new cost on people.

00:40:19.000 So now the prices are going to go up.

00:40:21.000 When you stack a new cost on goods and services, the prices go up.

00:40:25.000 And yelling at Walmart to eat the tariffs is really quite foolish.

00:40:30.000 You want to say to the American people, the prices need to go up to absorb temporary pain so we can rejigger our trade relationship with China?

00:40:37.000 That at least is honest.

00:40:38.000 But eat the tariffs is a ridiculous statement.

00:40:41.000 Eat the tariffs.

00:40:43.000 Come on.

00:40:44.000 And yes, Walmart, I'm sure, is desperate to politically harm the administration.

00:40:48.000 First of all, the family that owns Walmart is traditionally fairly Republican.

00:40:52.000 Second, Walmart is a low-cost store.

00:40:56.000 You think they want their prices to go up on their consumers?

00:41:00.000 Walmart's competitive advantage is that it undercharges pretty much everybody in the immediate area.

00:41:04.000 That's always been the critique of Walmart, is that it undercharges everybody, like the local mom-and-pop stores.

00:41:09.000 And so are you going to yell at them when the prices go up?

00:41:12.000 It's silly.

00:41:13.000 It's bad economic policy.

00:41:15.000 I would expect it from Bernie Sanders.

00:41:16.000 I do not expect that from the current president of the United States.

00:41:21.000 Scott Bessence, again, he has to do his best with the cards that he has dealt.

00:41:24.000 The Treasury Secretary says Walmart will eat some of the tariffs.

00:41:27.000 Listen, I'm sure they will.

00:41:28.000 I'm sure that it won't all come out in the pricing.

00:41:29.000 But come on.

00:41:32.000 I was on the phone with Doug McMillan, the CEO of Walmart, yesterday.

00:41:36.000 And Walmart is, in fact, going to, as you described it, eat some of the tariffs, just as they did in 18, 19, and 20. Okay, so, again, that...

00:41:56.000 That is fine, but try and pretend that there are no trade-offs in economic policy is, of course, very, very silly.

00:42:02.000 And the notion that we're out of the woods on the trade war, that obviously is untrue as well.

00:42:05.000 So, yes, we are negotiating some bilateral trade deals.

00:42:08.000 It will take a while for all that to come out in the wash.

00:42:09.000 The current average tariff rate in the United States for incoming goods is the highest it has been since 1932.

00:42:17.000 Those are additional costs on American consumers.

00:42:19.000 They are.

00:42:20.000 You can make the policy case that we need to do that.

00:42:22.000 For whatever reason, reassuring certain levels of manufacturing or boxing in China or whatever.

00:42:26.000 But at least be honest with the American people about it.

00:42:29.000 Scott Bessant, he says that countries are going to have to come to the table even more.

00:42:33.000 I think one of the problems here is that there are a lot of countries who are coming saying, like, let's give you a 0% tariff rate.

00:42:38.000 And the Trump administration is like, nope, still 10%.

00:42:40.000 Well, I mean, I don't know what you want people to offer at that point.

00:42:45.000 This means that they're not negotiating in good faith.

00:42:48.000 They are going to get a letter saying, Here is the rate.

00:42:54.000 So I would expect that everyone would come and negotiate in good faith.

00:42:59.000 You expect that rate, though, that you would slap on any country that you think is not negotiating in good faith to be above 10%?

00:43:05.000 Well, I think that it would be the April 2nd level.

00:43:09.000 Some countries were at 10%, some were substantially higher.

00:43:12.000 And the negotiating leverage that President Trump is talking about here is if you don't want to negotiate, then it will spring back to the April 2nd level.

00:43:23.000 Okay, so if that's still on the table, if the April 2nd levels are like 46% tariffs on Vietnam are still on the level, again, I think that's an empty threat.

00:43:30.000 I don't think that Treasury Secretary Besant wants any of that.

00:43:33.000 However, to pretend that we are better off today in terms of our tariff rates, our trade policy than we were on April 1st before Liberation Day would be to maintain ignorance of the current economic plans of the administration.

00:43:46.000 Meanwhile, the question of whether the big beautiful bill gets done before Memorial Day is still on the table.

00:43:53.000 So, yesterday, the House Budget Panel finally did approve the Trump Big Beautiful bill following some hardliner resistance.

00:43:59.000 According to Politico, House Republicans finally launched their party-line tax and spending package from the Budget Committee late on Sunday night.

00:44:05.000 That was after GOP leaders promised some final changes to appease fiscal hawks after a setback on Friday.

00:44:12.000 Just before the late-night markup, the Speaker huddled privately in a room adjacent to the meeting room with the Budget Committee of Republicans, who previously blocked the mega-bill from advancing.

00:44:19.000 That'd be Representatives Chip Roy of Texas, Jasper Sheen of Oklahoma, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, and Ralph Norman of South Carolina.

00:44:25.000 Once the markup reconvened, House Budget Chair Jody Arrington of Texas, who's been tasked with shepherding this thing through, said negotiations over changes to the more than 1,100-page bill are ongoing.

00:44:36.000 Apparently, the promises include speeding up enforcement of several policies in the bill, including Medicaid work requirements, All four of those Republicans did not end up voting at all in the committee.

00:44:52.000 They just ended up voting present, which shows that they don't love the bill, but they're not going to hold up the bill at this point.

00:44:59.000 Whether this still passes without any of those changes actually being enshrined remains a questionable thing.

00:45:06.000 Basically, as I said right at the beginning with the big, beautiful bill.

00:45:09.000 The choices were going to be between maintenance of the Trump tax cuts and a bunch of crap, or non-maintenance of the Trump tax cuts and slightly less crap.

00:45:19.000 Those were the two choices.

00:45:20.000 It was always going to be a crap sandwich.

00:45:21.000 It was just a matter of how much actual deli meat was in the sandwich and how much crap was in the sandwich.

00:45:26.000 And the answer was, if you have a big, beautiful sandwich, more crap, more deli meat.

00:45:30.000 If you have a no deal, then no deli meat and still some crap.

00:45:36.000 That was kind of the way to think about.

00:45:38.000 All of this.

00:45:40.000 This is why President Trump is pushing very hard for Republicans to get it done.

00:45:44.000 He's starting to weigh in significantly more vocally.

00:45:47.000 He put out a statement on Truth Social, quote, Republicans must unite behind the one big beautiful bill.

00:45:53.000 Not only does it cut taxes for all Americans, it will kick millions of illegal immigrants off of Medicaid to protect it for those who are the ones in real need.

00:45:59.000 The country will suffer greatly without this legislation, with their taxes going up 65% and will be blamed on the Democrats, but that doesn't help our voters.

00:46:05.000 We don't need grandstanders in the Republican Party.

00:46:07.000 Stop talking and get it done.

00:46:08.000 It's time to fix the mess that Biden and the Democrats gave us.

00:46:10.000 Thank you for your attention to this matter.

00:46:13.000 And of course, this is the right move from President Trump.

00:46:14.000 If the bill does not pass, the economy is going to crater.

00:46:17.000 I mean, it is that simple.

00:46:18.000 Right now, the markets have priced in the current tax rates and current regulation.

00:46:23.000 If the tax rates spike, then what you will see is the economy drop.

00:46:28.000 Investors will pull their money out because they know that they're going to be paying higher tax.

00:46:33.000 It will restructure business in the United States.

00:46:35.000 Again, the markets have already priced this in.

00:46:37.000 Does this mean the bill is perfect?

00:46:38.000 Far from it.

00:46:40.000 There's a bunch of junk in this bill, like true junk in this bill.

00:46:44.000 It is true that our debt problems are out of control.

00:46:46.000 It is also true that nothing that's currently being proposed would solve our debt problems.

00:46:51.000 Russ Vought over at Office of Management and Budget, he makes the case that this bill is better than what Democrats would have, which of course is true.

00:46:58.000 I mean, again, that is like saying that you are a better singer.

00:47:03.000 Then William Young or whatever his name was, the guy from American Idol who could barely warble.

00:47:08.000 Like, yes, this is better than what Democrats would provide.

00:47:11.000 Also, the current status of my health is better than a man dying of gangrene.

00:47:15.000 Like, yes, Democrats are very, very bad at these particular things.

00:47:19.000 But that doesn't mean that the one big beautiful bill is going to really bend the cost curve in a significant way.

00:47:24.000 Russ Vought says the current House bill includes $1.6 trillion in savings.

00:47:27.000 These are not gimmicks, but real reforms that lower spending and improve the program.

00:47:30.000 The bill satisfies the very redline test that House fiscal hawks laid out a few weeks ago that stated that the cost of any tax cut could be paid for with $2.5 trillion in assumed economic growth, but the rest had to be covered with savings from reform.

00:47:42.000 This bill exceeds that test by nearly $100 billion.

00:47:46.000 $36 trillion in debt is not solved overnight.

00:47:49.000 It's solved by advancing and securing victories at a scale that over time gives a fighting shot to addressing the problem.

00:47:53.000 Okay, but what are the actual problems with the bill?

00:47:55.000 Well, it includes...

00:47:57.000 A bunch of bad spending still on Medicaid.

00:48:01.000 Much of the good stuff in the bill only kicks in late.

00:48:05.000 The Wall Street Journal editorial board points out that it is good that the bill makes the 2017 tax reform permanent.

00:48:14.000 It's also good that the 2017 reform's 20% deduction for small businesses that pay at the individual rate is made permanent.

00:48:21.000 However, the bill does in fact stealth raise The top marginal tax rate by limiting itemized deductions for the 37% top tax bracket.

00:48:32.000 It also has a bunch of tax cuts for some groups and tax increases for others.

00:48:38.000 So the bill limits a tip exemption to an occupation which traditionally and customarily received tips before December 31st, 2024.

00:48:47.000 Unclear what exactly that means.

00:48:48.000 I mean, plumbers, electricians, do they actually get tips, for example?

00:48:53.000 Seniors.

00:48:54.000 Earning up to $75,000, get an enhanced $4,000 deduction, which is a pure vote-buying exercise.

00:48:59.000 That's on top of the $16,000 standard deduction.

00:49:02.000 All those tax breaks expire in 2028.

00:49:04.000 By the way, this is one of the ways that you hide the cost of bills.

00:49:07.000 You say that something's going to sunset that never will sunset.

00:49:10.000 You say, well, it's only going to cost a certain amount of money over the next three years, knowing it will absolutely be greenlit for the next 30 years.

00:49:20.000 The bill also includes An increase, I believe, in the child tax credit.

00:49:27.000 They're going to make the $2,000 child tax credit permanent at another $500 through 2028.

00:49:32.000 Again, those are not child tax credits.

00:49:34.000 A lot of people who are getting those credits do not actually pay taxes.

00:49:39.000 There's an increased $30,000 deduction for SALT.

00:49:43.000 Bottom line is this.

00:49:44.000 Does this make major changes on the spending front?

00:49:46.000 No.

00:49:47.000 Does it have to be passed?

00:49:48.000 Yes.

00:49:49.000 Welcome to the world of politics where neither party and basically the American people...

00:49:52.000 Are not willing to do the actual hard work of having serious conversations about our debt crisis, which means eventually we are going to have to go into austerity measures or inflation or raise taxes or all three.

00:50:04.000 Those are the actual options that we're going to hit probably sometime in the next five to ten years.

00:50:09.000 Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has now extended its block on President Trump's deportation bid under the Alien Enemies Act.

00:50:15.000 So they are not ruling that President Trump cannot use the Alien Enemies Act to deport members of Tren d 'Aragua.

00:50:22.000 The court did put a block on the use of that for the moment because they say that the Trump administration has not given them their due process.

00:50:29.000 Again, this is why I say that I agree with much of what President Trump is trying to do, but you have to do it in a way that is most likely to be successful.

00:50:37.000 It turns out that grabbing people and deporting them and then insisting that they remain deported without just bringing them back for a quick hearing before deporting them again, that is counterproductive.

00:50:46.000 It may look strong on the page, but it actually plays weak in the Supreme Court.

00:50:50.000 So the unsigned opinion, according to the justices, say this means advance notice of deportation and a meaningful opportunity to challenge the deportations in court.

00:51:00.000 Two justices did dissent.

00:51:02.000 That'd be Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, saying that this is plenary power of the executive branch.

00:51:07.000 The ruling does not say, again, that President Trump cannot use the Alien Enemies Act.

00:51:11.000 It just says that if you're going to use it, then you actually do have to pay attention to the due process clause of the Constitution.

00:51:18.000 So it is not the big victory that the Democrats are playing it as.

00:51:21.000 It's also not the giant loss that President Trump has been suggesting that it is.

00:51:25.000 Meanwhile, in foreign policy news, a pretty amazing story out of the Washington Examiner about the influence of Qatar.

00:51:33.000 So we've been talking about this for several weeks at this point.

00:51:36.000 Actually, going back further in that, we've been talking about Qatar and its relationship with Hamas and its relationship with Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood and all the rest.

00:51:44.000 Well, the Qatari embassy spends a fortune doing outreach.

00:51:48.000 That outreach has shifted dramatically from the left side of the aisle to the right side of the aisle, particularly in the aftermath of President Trump's election.

00:51:54.000 Well, now a piece from the Washington Examiner finds that the Qatari Embassy paid a PR firm $180,000 per month.

00:52:02.000 It's called Luminate Advisors, a registered foreign agent.

00:52:06.000 They paid them $180,000 a month, nearly $2 million a year.

00:52:10.000 And the only thing listed on their new FARA form is acquiring...

00:52:15.000 The interview with Tucker Carlson and the Prime Minister of Qatar.

00:52:19.000 According to the official Farah filing, the date that this particular PR agency and Tucker Carlson agreed to conduct that interview was February 26th, one week before the interview aired.

00:52:30.000 The stated purpose of the interview in the Farah document was that Qatar was going to get pretty rich massage treatment in that interview.

00:52:40.000 So, again, the PR agency was paid a fortune to acquire this interview with Tucker, and they did their job.

00:52:46.000 They got the interview with Tucker, and Tucker gave a very, very, very, very glowing interview with the Emir of Qatar.

00:52:51.000 Again, this is just indicative of how much Qatar tries to intervene in American politics. 0.60

00:52:57.000 And prior to Election Day, about 10% of communications from Qatari foreign agents to people in politics in the United States were directed at conservatives, either outlets or commentators.

00:53:07.000 After President Trump won, That shifted to over 50% of total correspondents.

00:53:13.000 They tried to do outreach to Fox News Digital, Just the News, the New York Post, the Daily Mail, the Washington Examiner.

00:53:20.000 Qatar obviously is spreading its money around.

00:53:22.000 This is why we should all be quite suspicious of the kinds of business deals that Qatar is trying to cut with people in the Trump camp.

00:53:28.000 Qatar does not do things without strings attached. 1.00

00:53:31.000 Clearly, they have an agenda.

00:53:32.000 Pretending they don't have an agenda is an act of willful ignorance.

00:53:37.000 Meanwhile, again, it is a mistake.

00:53:40.000 For President Trump to be going after media outlets that are pointing out that Qatar is spreading its influence this way.

00:53:49.000 So President Trump went on Truth Social and attacked ABC News.

00:53:53.000 Now, normally, I'm totally up for the attacks on ABC News.

00:53:55.000 This one happens not to be particularly accurate.

00:53:57.000 He says, why doesn't Chairman Bob Iger do something about the ABC fake news, especially since I just won $16 million based on the fake and defamatory reporting of little George Slopidopoulos?

00:54:06.000 He was given warnings, but just couldn't be restrained by management.

00:54:09.000 Now I see they're at it again.

00:54:10.000 I again give these sleazebags for a warning. 1.00

00:54:12.000 The wonderful country of Qatar, wonderful country of Qatar, is a country of 2.6 million people, 300,000 of which are actual citizens.

00:54:20.000 Some 2.3 million are either foreign workers or possible slaves.

00:54:24.000 Qatar, again, one of the bigger funders of terrorism on planet Earth and a gigantic funder of propaganda operations in America and elsewhere. 0.94

00:54:32.000 The wonderful country of Qatar, says President Trump, after agreeing to invest more than $1.4 trillion in the United States of America, deserves much better than the misleading fake news.

00:54:40.000 Everyone, including their lawyers, has been told that ABC must not say Qatar is giving me a free Boeing 747 airplane because they are not.

00:54:47.000 Instead, and as fake news, ABC fully knows and understands this highly respected country is donating the plane to the United States Air Force Defense Department not to me.

00:54:54.000 By the way, ABC News said that.

00:54:56.000 They also reported that after the plane is used by President Trump, it will then go to the Trump Presidential Library.

00:55:01.000 That is one of the stipulations of the contract.

00:55:03.000 That's not their fault.

00:55:04.000 If you don't like the deal being reported, don't do the deal.

00:55:08.000 By the way, it's going to be really expensive to retrofit that plane.

00:55:10.000 They basically have to take it apart piece by piece to make sure that there's no Chinese tech in there. 0.77

00:55:15.000 In any case, the situation in the Middle East continues to be quite fraught on a wide variety of fronts.

00:55:23.000 It is now...

00:55:24.000 It's perfectly clear, for example, that Hamas, the Israeli defense forces, are now going into Gaza full bore.

00:55:31.000 Hamas has been unwilling to sign on to a deal that would free some nine or ten hostages in return for a couple of months of ceasefire.

00:55:38.000 What they want is for Israel to simply withdraw from the entire Gaza Strip and hand them a victory based on them holding a few hostages, which is not going to happen.

00:55:44.000 It turns out, shock of shocks, Hamas' actual goal in the October 7th war was to destroy the possibility of an Abraham Accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

00:55:54.000 Days before the assault that left nearly 1,200 dead, according to the Wall Street Journal, Yahya Senwar, Hamas' Gaza chief, told fellow militants that an extraordinary act was required to derail the normalization talks he said risk marginalizing the Palestinian cause, according to the document reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

00:56:10.000 So, they were openly saying that they wanted to sink the Middle East peace process.

00:56:14.000 Again, these are the wonderful people so much of the left are backing, and a few on the right.

00:56:18.000 Wonderful, wonderful people.

00:56:20.000 Meanwhile, Erdogan, Tayyip Recep Erdogan, who is the dictatorial leader of Turkey, is flexing his power in the Middle East.

00:56:29.000 He obviously has been taking over large swaths of Syria in cahoots with HTS, the terrorist group that we are now relieving sanctions on.

00:56:37.000 Again, you make the case for relieving sanctions based on some actual normalization procedures, getting rid of terrorism, moderation, all the rest.

00:56:44.000 There had better be some strings attached to the revocation of Syrian sanctions.

00:56:48.000 Erdogan believes he's now in control of foreign policy.

00:56:52.000 Here he was, basically, I mean, I do have to find this hilarious.

00:56:55.000 He basically finger-trapped Emmanuel Macron.

00:56:57.000 It's so weird.

00:56:58.000 So Emmanuel Macron, who's a schmuck of schmucks, the current president of France, he is a joke of a leader.

00:57:05.000 He's unpopular in his own country for good reason.

00:57:08.000 He has, in foreign policy, consistently provided space for terror supporters.

00:57:14.000 Here is Erdogan basically showing physical dominance over the president of France by grabbing his fingers and not letting go.

00:57:20.000 Very weird.

00:57:26.000 He grabs his hand and then he just won't let go.

00:57:30.000 He's like holding his fingers and Macron is trying to get free and Erdogan just sits there holding his fingers.

00:57:37.000 He's still holding his fingers.

00:57:39.000 It's super weird.

00:57:41.000 Super strange.

00:57:44.000 Oh my goodness.

00:57:46.000 I'm so glad that people like Erdogan Have taken plenary control of Western policy in the Middle East, apparently.

00:57:52.000 And meanwhile, the question of an Iran negotiation continues.

00:57:55.000 Apparently, new negotiations have been set between the United States and Iran for this weekend in Rome.

00:57:59.000 The question is, what is the actual crossover?

00:58:01.000 So Steve Witkoff, the special envoy to the Middle East.

00:58:04.000 As you all know, I'm quite skeptical of Steve Witkoff's magical negotiating abilities.

00:58:09.000 Here he was on ABC's This Week, explaining that the goal of the United States was 0% enrichment.

00:58:16.000 We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability.

00:58:21.000 We've delivered a proposal to the Iranians that we think addresses some of this without disrespecting them.

00:58:28.000 And so that's important.

00:58:30.000 We want to get to a solution here.

00:58:35.000 And we think that we will be able to.

00:58:39.000 But everything begins from our standpoint, John, with a deal that does not include enrichment.

00:58:48.000 We cannot have that.

00:58:49.000 Thank you.

00:58:51.000 Okay, so, that's great.

00:58:53.000 That should be the standard.

00:58:54.000 Not just zero enrichment, by the way.

00:58:56.000 Zero capacity for enrichment.

00:58:57.000 Meaning, no centrifuges.

00:58:59.000 No nuclear program in Iran.

00:59:01.000 Iran, for its part, says no.

00:59:03.000 Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arrahi told Sky News Arabia, quote, Washington demands are far removed from the reality of the nuclear negotiations and we will continue uranium enrichment.

00:59:12.000 So what exactly are they negotiating over?

00:59:16.000 This is what remains unclear.

00:59:18.000 Is it just Iran trying to buy time? 0.78

00:59:19.000 Is it the United States trying to forestall the possibility of either an American or an Israeli attack on the nuclear facilities?

00:59:26.000 All of this remains unclear at this point.

00:59:28.000 I'm still struggling to see what the actual end goal is that seems to be achievable in any way, shape, or form.

00:59:34.000 And if the proposal ends up being something like a delayed JCPOA, three years of no development, and then three years from now you can do what you want, that is a fail.

00:59:42.000 The United States Senate has already said they will not sign off on anything remotely like that.

00:59:46.000 Meanwhile, negotiations sort of continue over Ukraine.

00:59:49.000 I say sort of because President Trump had conversations today with both the Ukrainians and the Russians.

00:59:58.000 Vice President J.D. Vance explained there's a deadlock in talks to end the war.

01:00:02.000 Putin does not know how to get out of the war.

01:00:05.000 He said if Russia doesn't cooperate, we will eventually announce this is not our war.

01:00:09.000 Well, I mean, I don't know what exactly that means.

01:00:11.000 This is not our war.

01:00:12.000 I mean, presumably, what that means is that the United States will get out of both sides.

01:00:18.000 I have a question.

01:00:19.000 That's exactly what Vladimir Putin wants.

01:00:21.000 I mean, Putin is hoping the United States get bored and walks away.

01:00:25.000 That is what he wants out of this.

01:00:26.000 That is the goal.

01:00:28.000 If what J.D. Vance means is something else, namely that we'll walk away from the negotiating table and then we'll continue to support Ukraine sufficient so they are not overrun by the Russians, agree. 0.99

01:00:39.000 If what he means is we're going to walk away and basically just abandon Ukraine in the face of the Russians, that would be a bad policy.

01:00:45.000 Totally unclear at this point what any of this means.

01:00:48.000 Vice President Vance did meet with Ukrainian President Zelensky in Rome on Sunday.

01:00:52.000 The meeting at the U.S. Ambassador's residence, it was also attended by the Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to the Washington Post, came as world leaders attended the inaugural Mass of Pope Leo XIV.

01:01:01.000 Zelensky described the session as a good meeting.

01:01:03.000 Zelensky said pressure on Russia must continue until it is ready to stop the war.

01:01:07.000 He reaffirmed Ukraine's readiness for real diplomacy and stressed the importance of a full and unconditional ceasefire as soon as possible.

01:01:12.000 Again, as I've said, Zelensky is doing the stuff that Trump wants him to do.

01:01:16.000 Vladimir Putin is not doing the stuff that Trump wants him to do.

01:01:19.000 Now, how successful exactly is the call between President Trump and Vladimir Putin?

01:01:24.000 Trump had expressed some optimism about this, suggesting that he was going to get a ceasefire done, that Vladimir Putin respects him enough, that he will do something along those lines.

01:01:33.000 Steve Witkoff was suggesting...

01:01:35.000 The same sort of thing.

01:01:36.000 Here is Whitcoff on Sunday.

01:01:38.000 I want to be a bit more positive about this.

01:01:41.000 I believe that the president is going to have a successful call with Vladimir Putin.

01:01:47.000 They know each other.

01:01:48.000 The president is determined to get something done here.

01:01:53.000 And hopefully, if he can't do it, then nobody can.

01:01:57.000 So I leave it to the two leaders to have that call.

01:02:01.000 So again, it's going to be very unclear as to what happens from here.

01:02:05.000 But it should be made clear at this point that Vladimir Putin does not actually want anything like a negotiated peace that sets the lines where they are.

01:02:14.000 He does not want that.

01:02:15.000 Vladimir Putin believes the United States will eventually walk away.

01:02:18.000 And hell, if you were Vladimir Putin, you'd probably believe that too.

01:02:20.000 The United States has, over the course of the last 20 years, walked away from the Kurds, the Afghans, the people of Hong Kong, and now maybe the people of Ukraine.

01:02:28.000 So why wouldn't they?

01:02:30.000 I mean, really?

01:02:31.000 Like, that is the game that Vladimir Putin is playing.

01:02:33.000 He's playing the long game here.

01:02:34.000 The United States is going to have to play a similarly long game if we actually wish for Vladimir Putin not to take over the entirety of Ukraine.

01:02:42.000 Meanwhile, my friend Dan Bongino, who is now the deputy director of the FBI, did a sit-down interview over the weekend.

01:02:48.000 Dan is fantastic.

01:02:49.000 And one of the things I like about Dan is that Dan is a truth-teller.

01:02:52.000 He's just going to tell you the truth, whether you like it or not, which is, again, a wonderful thing.

01:02:56.000 He did say something.

01:02:58.000 He was on with Kash Patel.

01:02:59.000 They were talking about how they were quite properly going to go into a deeper investigation of Russiagate.

01:03:03.000 That, of course, has been Dan's kind of main focus since 2017, when the media started covering Donald Trump as though he was a Russian cat's paw.

01:03:12.000 So they talked a lot about that.

01:03:14.000 But one of the other big sort of revelations was Dan Bongino said, listen, despite all the speculation, Jeffrey Epstein did in fact kill himself.

01:03:21.000 Okay, I'll tell you why I like this.

01:03:22.000 The reason I like this is because...

01:03:25.000 I'm not a big fan of just pure speculation.

01:03:27.000 I, too, have played the did Epstein kill himself game because, I mean, pretty suspicious.

01:03:31.000 But I believe Dan Bongino.

01:03:33.000 I don't believe he's lying for the deep state.

01:03:35.000 If there's one person who can be trusted not to lie for the deep state, in fact, it would be Dan Bongino.

01:03:38.000 Here was Dan saying a truthful thing.

01:03:42.000 I mean, listen, they have a right to their opinion, but as someone who has worked as a public defender, as a prosecutor, who's been in that prison system, who's been in the Metropolitan Detention Center, who's been in segregated housing, you know a suicide when you see one, and that's what that was.

01:03:58.000 He killed himself.

01:04:00.000 Again, you want me to...

01:04:02.000 I've seen the whole file.

01:04:03.000 He killed himself.

01:04:08.000 Good for Dan Bongino.

01:04:09.000 This is one of the reasons I like having Dan Bongino in there, is because you know Dan ain't going to hide the ball.

01:04:13.000 Dan is not going to lie.

01:04:15.000 That's true for Kash Patel as well, but it's certainly true of Dan, who I know well.

01:04:19.000 So, good for Dan.

01:04:20.000 That's good.

01:04:21.000 Again, transparency is, in fact, the best medicine.

01:04:24.000 Meanwhile, the Trump administration, in other good things, continues to go after major universities that are absolutely promoting anti-American trash.

01:04:40.000 Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education, she's talking openly about raising taxes on endowments for universities.

01:04:46.000 This is worthwhile.

01:04:49.000 It is.

01:04:50.000 I mean, the reality is that these universities have become propaganda outlets for a far-left viewpoint, very often in violation of the Civil Rights Act, and treating them with kid gloves is not the way.

01:04:59.000 Here is Linda McMahon expressing this.

01:05:02.000 Let's go back to Harvard for a minute when they have almost a $53 billion endowment.

01:05:07.000 Now, there's a small endowment tax that's on endowments that's currently in place.

01:05:12.000 It's about 1.4 percent, and that's on universities that have at least 500 students that are on tuition.

01:05:20.000 So that's at about, I think, 500,000 per student is kind of the barometer they look at before the taxes start.

01:05:29.000 So this is really going to increase that.

01:05:32.000 But it's about $2 million per pupil that gets, you know, sort of waived before the taxes start.

01:05:40.000 But it's a ton of money, if you look at it, that is going non-taxed.

01:05:47.000 Even though universities will say we use most of our endowment for student aid and for research, well, don't you think that's what they should be using those endowment dollars for?

01:05:59.000 Okay, she is right about all this.

01:06:00.000 She also says, you know, if Harvard actually wants to make a deal with us and we don't tax their endowment, probably they should just let us in.

01:06:05.000 That would actually be the proper solution.

01:06:08.000 Well, we'd like to see them do the things we've asked them to do in the letter.

01:06:14.000 We would like for them to let us come in and sit with them and see exactly what they're doing.

01:06:19.000 Show us what you're doing.

01:06:20.000 They're doing a lot of talk about the things they're doing.

01:06:23.000 But, you know, if they really are doing these things, then they should not object to allowing the task force or other members that have been assigned to come in and take a look at exactly what they are doing.

01:06:34.000 Thank you.

01:06:36.000 Okay, so again, all of this is proper.

01:06:39.000 Harvard should try to cut a deal.

01:06:41.000 That's what they should do.

01:06:41.000 Harvard should absolutely try to cut a deal with the Trump administration and actually abide by, you know, the Civil Rights Act, as they are supposed to do.

01:06:50.000 It is truly amazing to me to watch people suggest that violation of the Civil Rights Act is perfectly okay so long as it is done.

01:06:55.000 Against Jews. 1.00

01:06:57.000 That's the argument anyway.

01:06:58.000 Again, free speech on campus is a thing and should be a thing.

01:07:03.000 However, the Civil Rights Act does apply to federal taxpayer dollars.

01:07:07.000 And it doesn't stop applying just because you agree with some of the things that are creating an environment of harassment.

01:07:14.000 Listen, if you don't like the Civil Rights Act in general, or you don't like its application to universities, fine with me.

01:07:18.000 Let's talk about it.

01:07:19.000 I'm open to that.

01:07:19.000 But to pretend that the law only applies on one side and doesn't apply on the other is simply silly.

01:07:24.000 Okay.

01:07:25.000 Time for Diddy Watch.

01:07:27.000 Listen, I know.

01:07:28.000 We really only do Diddy Watch when it comes to Ben Afterdark, but the reality is it is kind of a fascinating case.

01:07:33.000 It's mostly a fascinating case because this is what happens when you have a culture that is so willing to look the other way on evil, promiscuous, disgusting behavior that by the time it reaches the level of criminal, there are serious questions about the criminality.

01:07:49.000 That's the part of this that really is astonishing because there is an open legal question when it comes to The trial of Sean Diddy Combs as to whether he committed the crimes that are alleged.

01:07:59.000 Because the crimes that are alleged are trafficking, not him being a complete piece of bleep, which he clearly, clearly is.

01:08:06.000 And so that's actually the defense.

01:08:08.000 The defense that Diddy's team is currently running is that Diddy is a piece of crap, but he's not a piece of crap who's trafficked.

01:08:15.000 And one of the problems that the prosecution is going to have in this case is that he is fully admitting to, for example, beating up his girlfriend.

01:08:23.000 But there's a difference between that and cross-state lines trafficking.

01:08:29.000 And if all these people consented to this terrible treatment and kept coming back for more of this terrible treatment for the money, how criminal is it?

01:08:37.000 That is the question that the defense is leaving on the table.

01:08:39.000 Again, none of that is a go-ahead for his activity.

01:08:41.000 But we have lost in our society the capacity at all to distinguish between the consensual and the moral.

01:08:47.000 We have decided that if something is consensual, it is therefore moral.

01:08:50.000 Again, there's sort of three categories here, consensual, moral, and legal.

01:08:54.000 Okay, very often, something that is consensual is immoral, but also legal.

01:08:58.000 But we have decided, basically, because as a country, we are more secular now, and because as a country, we no longer believe in morality and legality being separate in any serious way.

01:09:09.000 Kind of on both sides, it's very strange.

01:09:11.000 We now determine that if we don't like what somebody did, it must be illegal.

01:09:16.000 Even if it was, you know, immoral.

01:09:20.000 And not illegal.

01:09:21.000 It has to be illegal.

01:09:21.000 Like, moral and legal are the same category now.

01:09:23.000 We're conflating the two categories.

01:09:25.000 Again, this is not a legal defense of Sean Diddy Combs.

01:09:27.000 Again, we're still getting all the evidence.

01:09:29.000 But that's the defense that he is making.

01:09:31.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, faced with a mountain of video and photographic evidence of their client's violence toward women, the defense strategy is to own the bad behavior rather than make excuses.

01:09:39.000 At the same time, his lawyers are trying to make clear domestic violence isn't the same as trafficking.

01:09:44.000 Candidly acknowledging Combs'flaws might bear fruit in winning credibility with the jury, according to defense lawyers who aren't involved in the case.

01:09:49.000 If you defend the indefensible, the jury isn't going to believe anything you say, said Moira Penza, a former federal prosecutor and partner at the law firm Wilkinson Steckloff.

01:09:57.000 Thank you.

01:09:57.000 So, again, Diddy's already taken the reputational hit.

01:10:01.000 So why wouldn't he actually just say, yeah, I engage in all this gross and terrible behavior, but it's not criminal.

01:10:07.000 Sarah Kristoff, a former federal prosecutor, said lawyers for comes know they can't get around the video or cast of interest, detailed testimony of a toxic relationship with.

01:10:17.000 Did he?

01:10:17.000 The legal argument, she said, Combs did bad things, but not these bad things.

01:10:21.000 This is according to the Wall Street Journal.

01:10:23.000 Prosecutors told the jury in their opening statement that as proof of the racketeering conspiracy, they would show that Combs committed kidnapping, arson, and bribery.

01:10:30.000 As one example, Combs bribed intercontinental security staff with $100,000 in an attempt to keep video surveillance footage of his hotel hallway attack on Ventura under wraps, they allege.

01:10:39.000 Prosecutors will also likely point...

01:10:41.000 Tuventura's testimony is proof of the conspiracy charge, which involves showing Combs and those in his inner circle agreed to commit crimes as part of the group.

01:10:48.000 She told jurors he had his security team take her to a plastic surgeon after she suffered a gash to her head during one of the attacks.

01:10:55.000 But Combs' lawyers are going to try to argue both instances were consistent with their defense, saying he didn't do those independently.

01:11:01.000 He was trying to cover up his abuse.

01:11:03.000 So yes, he was abusive, and yes, he did those things, but he wasn't doing bribery for the sake of doing bribery.

01:11:07.000 He was basically doing this stuff because he wanted to cover up.

01:11:10.000 What exactly the underlying crime was, which was, you know, actual domestic violence.

01:11:16.000 It's sort of a fascinating case, again, because what we actually should have just said years and years and years ago is that people in Hollywood are disgusting, vile and disgusting.

01:11:26.000 But we've fallen into this trap now of if a woman stays with a man for long periods of time, after he demands she does these degrading, degrading things, that somehow all of that would be okay except for the criminality.

01:11:39.000 It was never okay.

01:11:41.000 What he did was not okay.

01:11:42.000 What she did in staying with him was not okay.

01:11:45.000 And we would be much better off in a society that did not suggest that the consensual and the moral were the exact same thing because they absolutely are not.

01:11:52.000 Meanwhile, apparently, Diddy is actively working for a Donald Trump pardon.

01:11:56.000 Oh boy.

01:11:57.000 I don't think that's going to happen.

01:11:59.000 I have a hard time believing that's going to happen.

01:12:01.000 But Kanye West, who in his spare time, when he's not building shrines to Hitler, has publicly appealed to President Trump for a pardon.

01:12:12.000 Wow.

01:12:14.000 That sounds just awesome.

01:12:17.000 Now, Combs has praised President Trump in the past.

01:12:19.000 In 2015, he said Donald Trump is a friend of mine and he works very hard.

01:12:23.000 But their relationship turned sour because in June 2017, Diddy admitted, according to the Mirror, I think that, to be honest, we really don't give an F about Trump because black people are in the same F'd up position.

01:12:33.000 That's not what we're on.

01:12:34.000 The tomfoolery going on in D.C., that's just regular everyday business to black folks. 1.00

01:12:38.000 That's not surprising.

01:12:40.000 I do not think that a pardon is forthcoming for P. McDiddy.

01:12:44.000 I don't think that is likely to happen.

01:12:47.000 Alrighty, folks, the show is continuing for members right now.

01:12:49.000 We're going to get to the mailbag.

01:12:50.000 Remember, in order to watch, you do have to be a member.

01:12:52.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

01:12:53.000 Use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - May 19, 2025

Biden Was Senile, Had CANCER, And They Knew!

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