The Ben Shapiro Show - BREAKING: Le Pen BANNED?!?

00:00:00.000 Well folks, America is on the comeback, but the fight for truth is far from over.

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00:00:31.000 Well, President Trump continues to resist the calls from isolationists on the right and from Insanely anti-American voices on the left to essentially make his foreign policy subject to the whims of other countries.

00:00:45.000 He's just refusing to do that.

00:00:46.000 So this Signalgate story, which ate up the headlines all of last week, this idea that because there was a group chat involving the national security apparatus inside the Trump administration that also accidentally invited in Jeffrey Goldberg, the pseudo-journalist editor of The Atlantic, That this was a rationale for him to blow up his entire national security infrastructure?

00:01:05.000 That isn't true.

00:01:06.000 President Trump addressed that over the weekend.

00:01:08.000 According to a brief phone interview he did with NBC News over the weekend, he told the network, I don't fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts.

00:01:15.000 Here was NBC's Kristen Welker reporting.

00:01:18.000 In an exclusive phone interview on Saturday, the president told me, quote, I don't fire people because of fake news and because of witch hunts.

00:01:26.000 Mr. Trump said he still has confidence in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Walls.

00:01:34.000 Now, why did he say that?

00:01:35.000 Because, according to Trump, quote, we had a tremendously successful strike.

00:01:38.000 We struck very hard and very lethal.

00:01:40.000 Nobody wants to talk about that.

00:01:41.000 All they want to talk about is nonsense.

00:01:43.000 It's fake news.

00:01:44.000 He says, I have no idea what Signal is.

00:01:45.000 I don't care what Signal is.

00:01:46.000 I can tell you it's a witch hunt.

00:01:47.000 It's the only thing the press wants to talk about because you have nothing else to talk about.

00:01:51.000 It has been the greatest 100-day presidency in the history of our country.

00:01:55.000 So, again, this is President Trump ignoring the foolishness in favor of the actual policy, which is, if the Houthis hit at American assets or American allies, then they get struck.

00:02:05.000 And President Trump seems to be upping the ante all over the world with regards to this sort of stuff.

00:02:10.000 So, Many people have been fearful that President Trump was simply going to cave to Vladimir Putin, that Vladimir Putin is sort of slow-playing President Trump in Ukraine.

00:02:17.000 Now, as you recall, Vladimir Zelensky came to the White House, got chewed out by both Trump and Vice President J.D.

00:02:21.000 Vance, and then expelled from the White House over his sort of brazen attempts to get Trump to commit to security commitments in the room.

00:02:30.000 And then Zelensky effectively apologized on the world stage.

00:02:33.000 And then he said that he was going to agree to an immediate ceasefire.

00:02:37.000 And in the meantime, Vladimir Putin has refused to agree to anything like a comprehensive ceasefire.

00:02:41.000 He said maybe he'll have a ceasefire with regard to energy infrastructure.

00:02:44.000 Or maybe there'll be a ceasefire in the Black Sea.

00:02:47.000 Well, in reality, Vladimir Putin is playing a game.

00:02:49.000 And everybody can see that he's playing a game.

00:02:51.000 On Friday, he called for a transitional administration to be put place in Ukraine.

00:02:55.000 And then vowed his army would, quote, finish off Ukrainian troops.

00:02:57.000 So while Putin...

00:03:00.000 He's attempting to pretend that he actually wants to get to the end of the war.

00:03:02.000 It is now pretty clear which side does not want to get to the end of the war.

00:03:06.000 Zelensky has accepted the reality, which is that Ukraine is not going to, at least in this round of fighting, win back Donbass or Crimea.

00:03:13.000 But Vladimir Putin does not want the war to end because he feels the momentum is on his side and that if he can sort of continue the push, that eventually the West will give in, stop funding Ukraine, and he will in fact end up sitting in the presidential palace in Kiev.

00:03:26.000 According to Yahoo News, a rapprochement between Washington and Moscow since Trump's return to office and the U.S. leader's threats to stop supporting Kiev have bolstered Putin's confidence more than three years into an offensive that has killed tens of thousands of people on both sides.

00:03:38.000 The renewed call to essentially topple Zelensky was the latest demonstration of the Kremlin leader's long-standing desire to install a more Moscow-friendly regime in Kiev.

00:03:46.000 Zelensky dismissed Putin's call for a U.N.-run administration as the Russian leader's latest ploy to delay a peace deal, which, of course, is true. 0.95

00:03:53.000 Putin said that Russia could discuss with the United States, Europe, and Moscow's allies, quote, under the auspices of the UN, the possibility of establishing a transitional administration in Ukraine.

00:04:02.000 And then he said that that would organize a democratic presidential election that would result in the coming to power of a competent government.

00:04:08.000 So basically, he wants to oust Zelensky by threat of force, and then he wants his own man put in place in Ukraine.

00:04:16.000 Well, President Trump is now seeing through all of this.

00:04:19.000 President Trump, in an interview with NBC News, President Trump called me to tell me he is quote, Pissed off with Russia's President Putin and threatened to impose secondary tariffs on Russia's oil.

00:04:45.000 Quote, if Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine and if I think it was Russia's fault, which it might not be, but if I think it was Russia's fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on all oil coming out of Russia.

00:05:02.000 Now, secondary tariff means that it's not just that the United States will put a tariff on oil coming out of Russia.

00:05:07.000 It's that he is going to essentially put tariffs on any country that takes Russian oil, which would devastate the Russian economy because Russia is basically a giant gas station with nuclear weapons.

00:05:16.000 President Trump said that would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can't do business in the United States.

00:05:20.000 There'll be a 25 percent tariff on all oil, a 25 to 50 point tariff on all oil.

00:05:25.000 Now, again, this is the correct response from President Trump.

00:05:28.000 He has now pushed the Ukrainians. 0.99

00:05:32.000 They're agreeing to rare earth minerals deals.

00:05:33.000 They're agreeing to immediate ceasefires.

00:05:35.000 Zelensky gets the picture.

00:05:37.000 The problem is that Vladimir Putin does not, in fact, get the picture.

00:05:40.000 And so when President Trump is pissed off, he has every right to be pissed off because he understands that Vladimir Putin is, in fact, playing him.

00:05:46.000 And so for all the sort of tankies on both right and left who believe that Trump is going to simply cave into Vladimir Putin, that is not how Trump operates.

00:05:53.000 The thing about President Trump is that all these people who sit around trying to figure out exactly what he is saying, what exactly he's doing, There is no massive backroom calculus that is happening here.

00:06:03.000 He is not sitting in the back room with one of those Charlie Day, it's always sunny in Philadelphia, boards with all of the strings connecting picture to picture.

00:06:11.000 President Trump says exactly what he thinks, and he says it clearly and openly, which is why he's been president twice.

00:06:16.000 The American people know what they are getting from President Trump, and everybody who keeps looking for some sort of secret motivation, there's no secret motivation.

00:06:22.000 He just does the thing.

00:06:24.000 This also happens to be true with regard to Iran.

00:06:27.000 So President Trump Had sent a letter to the Iranian president saying, would you like to open negotiations over your nuclear program?

00:06:34.000 And if you don't want to open negotiations over your nuclear program, bad stuff is going to happen.

00:06:38.000 Well, on Sunday, Iran's president said that the Islamic Republic had rejected direct negotiations with the United States over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.

00:06:48.000 President Massoud Pashakian said that Iran's response delivered via the Sultanate of Oman left open the possibility of indirect negotiations with Washington, but Such talks have made no progress since Trump in his first term unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.

00:07:02.000 That, of course, was the so-called JCPOA, which was the ridiculous nuclear deal that was negotiated by Barack Obama that essentially gave Iran a clear pathway to a bomb.

00:07:11.000 It said, you have to delay it for 10 years, but you can use all the money that we are giving you and now freeing up to spread terrorism all over the Middle East. 0.78

00:07:17.000 And we have seen the consequences of that over the past couple of years when the entire Middle East has gone up in flames, thanks in large part to the additional funding that was granted to Iran By the Obama administration and then the Biden administration, the relief that was given to them, so they could then spread their terror all over the Middle East. 0.99

00:07:34.000 Pajetkin said, we don't avoid talks, it's the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far.

00:07:38.000 They must prove they can build trust, that we can build trust with you, who are using all the money that the Obama administration freed up to pay for terrorist proxies all over the Middle East and ballistic missile development.

00:07:49.000 That you can trust us?

00:07:51.000 Excuse me?

00:07:53.000 So, the U.S. State Department responded, quote, President Trump has been clear the United States cannot allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.

00:07:58.000 The President expressed his willingness to discuss a deal with Iran.

00:08:00.000 If the Iranian regime does not want a deal, the President is clear he will pursue other options, which will be very bad for Iran.

00:08:05.000 Again, this is not a complex calculus.

00:08:08.000 President Trump himself said that if they don't come to some sort of answer with regards to their nuclear program, the United States is going to come to an answer with regards to their nuclear program, and that answer might involve some bombs falling on their nuclear facilities.

00:08:21.000 Now, of course, it wouldn't be the United States predominantly that would do that.

00:08:24.000 Presumably, that would be the Israelis doing that with armaments essentially lent them by the United States.

00:08:31.000 However, President Trump's foreign policy is very clear.

00:08:34.000 He is willing to make a deal at any time with anyone.

00:08:37.000 But if you aren't willing to make a deal, the kind of deal the United States wants to enter into, he is going to clock you or he's going to allow America's allies to clock you.

00:08:46.000 Again, this is called peace through strength.

00:08:48.000 It is not particularly difficult to understand.

00:08:50.000 It's actually quite easy.

00:08:51.000 To understand.

00:08:53.000 Now, meanwhile, in sort of funnier foreign policy news, J.D. Vance arrived in Greenland over the weekend and I think spoke for all Americans when he dropped this particular line.

00:09:02.000 He arrived, he was talking to American troops.

00:09:04.000 We do have American troops stationed in Greenland for national security purposes.

00:09:07.000 We have a base there.

00:09:08.000 And here is J.D. Vance summing up the feelings of all Americans with regard to Greenland.

00:09:13.000 Hey guys, how we doing?

00:09:14.000 Please, at ease.

00:09:15.000 At ease.

00:09:16.000 Good lord.

00:09:16.000 Sit down and eat.

00:09:17.000 Sit down and eat.

00:09:17.000 Don't let the vice president stop you guys from getting your chow here.

00:09:20.000 How we doing?

00:09:22.000 It's cold as **** here.

00:09:23.000 Nobody told me.

00:09:27.000 Okay, so yes, it is indeed cold as bleep in Greenland.

00:09:31.000 He said, nobody told me.

00:09:33.000 JD is right about that.

00:09:35.000 The vice president is correct about that.

00:09:37.000 I will say that I think it's bizarre.

00:09:38.000 That we are extending the same sort of logic to many of our allies that we have extended to our enemies.

00:09:44.000 So J.D. Vance, slam Denmark.

00:09:47.000 Now again, Greenland has like 50,000 people.

00:09:50.000 If the Greenlanders wish to join the United States, they could hold a referendum tomorrow and join the United States.

00:09:55.000 They've made clear they don't actually wish to join the United States.

00:09:57.000 The United States does have serious national interests in Greenland because of the Arctic channels that flow around Greenland that are now being victimized and used as bases in some ways by the Russians and the Chinese.

00:10:11.000 However, slamming Denmark, like this part I don't really understand, I'll be honest with you.

00:10:15.000 Here's J.D.

00:10:15.000 Van slamming Denmark.

00:10:17.000 There is no amount of bullying, no amount of obfuscating, no amount of confusing the issue.

00:10:24.000 Our message to Denmark is very simple.

00:10:26.000 You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland.

00:10:30.000 You have underinvested in the people of Greenland, and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful landmass filled with incredible people.

00:10:40.000 That has to change.

00:10:41.000 And because it hasn't changed, this is why President Trump's policy in Greenland is what it is.

00:10:48.000 And President Trump said we will get Greenland yet 100% and then added there's a good possibility we could do it without military force, but I don't take anything off the table.

00:10:55.000 So war for Greenland apparently is still on the table.

00:11:01.000 Okay. Greenland Prime Minister Jans Fredrik Nielsen pushed back and said President Trump says the United States is getting Greenland.

00:11:07.000 Let me make this clear.

00:11:08.000 The United States is not getting that.

00:11:09.000 We don't belong to anyone else.

00:11:10.000 We decide our own future.

00:11:11.000 Again, I don't think that's what President Trump is actually going for.

00:11:13.000 Maybe he is.

00:11:14.000 Maybe he is.

00:11:15.000 It would be a Large use of political capital to go get Greenland.

00:11:20.000 I suppose there are some reasons to get Greenland.

00:11:23.000 But, expending political capital in this way, it's a choice.

00:11:27.000 I'm not sure it's a choice most Americans are deeply invested in.

00:11:30.000 So obviously the United States does actually have some pretty significant national security interests in Greenland.

00:11:35.000 I asked our friends over at Perplexity to spell those out.

00:11:37.000 Of course, Perplexity is the sponsor of the show.

00:11:39.000 By the way, I should mention here, Perplexity is such a great tool, they're not even paying me for this particular bump.

00:11:44.000 I'm just saying this.

00:11:45.000 Producer Zach went to the car dealer over the weekend and producer Zach got like a $10,000 discount on his car by using information that he got from Perplexity about, for example, the VIN number of the car, how long it had been on the lot, how much it was costing them to keep the car on the lot every day.

00:12:01.000 It had been there for like 200 days and he negotiated down his car price based on information he got from Perplexity.

00:12:05.000 So good for producer Zach.

00:12:06.000 A smart use of Perplexity.

00:12:08.000 Anyway, I asked Perplexity, what are the United States' national security interests in Greenland?

00:12:12.000 What is the U.S.'s history of protecting and defending Greenland?

00:12:14.000 And here's what Perplexity says.

00:12:16.000 Greenland holds significant strategic importance for the United States due to its location in the Arctic and its role in global security.

00:12:21.000 It's situated at a critical juncture between North America and Europe, making it vital for monitoring air and sea routes.

00:12:27.000 The U.S. operates Pitufic Space Base, formerly called Thule Air Base, which serves as a key installation for missile detection in Arctic operations.

00:12:35.000 The 1951 Greenland Defense Agreement allows the United States to establish and maintain military facilities on the island, ensuring rapid response capabilities.

00:12:43.000 As global rivalries intensify, particularly with Russia and China, Greenland is pivotal for maintaining U.S. influence in the Arctic region, which is becoming a contested area due to climate change and emerging trade routes, because a lot of the ice up there is thawing, and that means that ships can now travel up there.

00:12:56.000 The United States has a long history of protecting Greenland.

00:12:58.000 During World War II, the U.S. actually established military bases there because Denmark, of course, had been occupied by the Nazis.

00:13:04.000 The 1941 Defense of Greenland Agreement allowed American forces to protect the island from German influence during the Cold War.

00:13:11.000 It was a strategic outpost for us to monitor the Soviets.

00:13:14.000 The U.S. has tried to buy Greenland a bunch of times, all the way from 1867 to 1946, basically.

00:13:20.000 So, nothing new in what President Trump is trying to do.

00:13:22.000 Whether we take it by military force or not, you know, I'm a little skeptical.

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00:14:29.000 Also, if you're the owner of a growing business the way I am, imagine a hiring approach similar to speed dating, but instead of meeting potential romantic partners, you'd meet multiple qualified job candidates in a single scheduled session.

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00:15:24.000 Only from ZipRecruiter rated number one hiring site based According to the brand new CBS poll, President Trump remains at a 50% approval rating.

00:15:40.000 50% approve, 50% disapprove.

00:15:43.000 When it comes to immigration, he's at 53.47, which makes sense. 0.88

00:15:48.000 On the economy, he's at 48.52.

00:15:49.000 On inflation, he's at 44.56.

00:15:52.000 And this is the big problem for President Trump, that faces President Trump right now.

00:15:56.000 And this is the thing that President Trump has to focus in on.

00:15:59.000 As I've been saying for weeks at this point, the only thing that can stop the Trump train here is a sinking economy.

00:16:05.000 A sinking economy stops any train.

00:16:06.000 It doesn't matter who the president is.

00:16:07.000 If you're the president and you have a bad economy, it really stops you in your tracks.

00:16:11.000 Well, right now, the polling data show that the American people are pretty skittish about some of the economic plans that President Trump is making, particularly with regard to tariffs.

00:16:19.000 And again, There's plenty of great stuff happening on the economic front.

00:16:22.000 Everything from doge to tax cuts.

00:16:24.000 However, the swings with regard to the economy in public opinion polling are not good for President Trump right now.

00:16:29.000 That same CBS News poll that showed him at 50%, which again is a very solid number for President Trump.

00:16:34.000 The question of whether Trump's policies are making you financially better off, worse off, or the same.

00:16:40.000 In January, 42% of people said better off.

00:16:43.000 28% of people said worse off.

00:16:45.000 30% of people said the same.

00:16:47.000 Today, Only 23% of Americans say that Trump's policies are making them financially better off.

00:16:52.000 42% say worse off, which is a 33 point swing.

00:16:56.000 And 35% say the same.

00:16:58.000 When it comes to inflation, 38% of Americans say that Joe Biden's policies are still to blame the most for today's inflation rate.

00:17:06.000 34% say Trump's policies and 19% say both equally.

00:17:11.000 Well, that means that 53% of Americans say that Trump bears some responsibility for the nation's inflationary policies.

00:17:18.000 This is a problem in the middle of President Trump's threats that he is going to have a liberation day with regard to the global economy.

00:17:26.000 And by that he means that we are going to push extraordinarily broad and high tariffs.

00:17:31.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, the Trump administration is scrambling to determine the specifics of its new tariff agenda ahead of its self-imposed deadline of Wednesday, weighing options as the president has promised to remake the American economy with a swath of new levies.

00:17:42.000 One key point of debate is whether to impose individualized tariff rates for U.S. trading partners, As President Trump has previewed in recent weeks, or to revert to his campaign pledge for an across-the-board tariff that would affect virtually every country doing business with the United States, according to people familiar with the conversations.

00:17:58.000 Trump spent most of last week playing down expectations for his so-called reciprocal tariff plan on April 2nd.

00:18:03.000 But in recent days, Trump has pushed his team to be more aggressive, according to people familiar with his conversations, encouraging them to devise plans that apply higher rates of tariffs on a broad set of countries.

00:18:12.000 Trump reinforced that narrative on Sunday night.

00:18:14.000 He said he would target, quote, essentially all of U.S. trading partners with tariffs of some kind.

00:18:20.000 Well, that would be an extraordinary move by President Trump.

00:18:23.000 Frankly, I don't understand how he has the executive authority to do that.

00:18:25.000 This really is in Congress's purview.

00:18:28.000 And if the Republican Congress wishes not to lose a bunch of seats in the midterm elections, I would highly recommend that if President Trump pushes really high tariffs over the next couple of days, that Congress start thinking about taking back some of its constitutionally Regardless of what you think of President Trump's policies, no president, Democrat or Republican, should have the unilateral ability to simply increase the prices on goods across the board by 20% on all Americans.

00:18:56.000 That is not a power delegated to any president under the Constitution of the United States.

00:19:00.000 In recent days, advisors have considered imposing global tariffs of up to 20% that would hit virtually all U.S. trading partners.

00:19:09.000 Trump and his team for months promoted such a plan on the campaign trail before the president publicly ditched it in favor of that so-called reciprocal tariff plan that is still possibly on the table.

00:19:17.000 Whatever the final plan, the official said the president wants the policy to be, quote, big and simple, which means the final action will be broader than earlier plans to prioritize levying tariffs on the U.S.'s biggest trading partners, about 15 percent of the world's nations, which Treasury Secretary Scott Besant had labeled in the media appearances as, quote, the dirty 15. Again, this is not good policy.

00:19:35.000 It just isn't.

00:19:36.000 Again, I want President Trump's policies to succeed.

00:19:39.000 This is not a policy geared towards success.

00:19:41.000 Now, the case to be made, if you're going to steelman the argument in favor of a broad tariff regime, the steelman case is the effect of the tariffs over the long haul.

00:19:50.000 Let's say that you believe that trade deficits are one of the biggest problems facing America.

00:19:55.000 The idea that we buy more from other countries than other countries buy from us.

00:19:58.000 I don't believe in this because, again, you have a trade deficit with your grocery store.

00:20:02.000 You have a trade deficit with your barber.

00:20:04.000 You have a trade deficit With your local auto dealer.

00:20:06.000 You have a trade deficit with everyone from whom you buy.

00:20:09.000 That does not mean they ripped you off.

00:20:11.000 It does not mean some great injustice has been done.

00:20:13.000 That is not the way global economics works.

00:20:15.000 And in fact, when we run a trade deficit with another country, they have to use those dollars for something and typically they use it to buy up treasuries.

00:20:22.000 Very often they are using that in international trade in order to finance our debt.

00:20:27.000 So let's be clear that it is not just we spend money on Vietnamese t-shirts and that money disappears into the ether.

00:20:32.000 That is not the way any of this works.

00:20:34.000 And you may not like the fact that Vietnam makes t-shirts and the United States no longer does, but we also make the entire world software industry, and Vietnam does not.

00:20:44.000 There are good purposes to tariffs for national security reasons.

00:20:47.000 I've said this a thousand times.

00:20:48.000 When it comes to important national defense industries, obviously we have to maintain their production capacity in the United States, because we don't want to be reliant on anyone else if it comes to a war.

00:20:58.000 For sure.

00:21:00.000 And for national security reasons, there may be reasons to tariff other countries as a punishment.

00:21:04.000 You want to do a tariff, as we mentioned earlier on, Russian oil, because you want to stop them from pursuing a particular policy.

00:21:10.000 Or you want to tariff China, because you want to stop them from stealing our IP.

00:21:13.000 Totally in for that as well.

00:21:15.000 But the idea that tariffs in and of themselves are going to be good for the economy, that's wrong.

00:21:19.000 But to still man the argument, the basic idea would be that the American dollar right now is very strong in international trade.

00:21:26.000 And the reason the American dollar is very strong is there's a large demand For American treasuries and services and all of that because of the trade deficits that we run.

00:21:34.000 If you end those trade deficits and you rebalance it, you weaken the American dollar.

00:21:38.000 What is the good part about weakening the American dollar?

00:21:39.000 Well, if you're President Trump, the good part about weakening the American dollar is that it leads to more domestic consumption because everything becomes more expensive imported from overseas to the United States.

00:21:48.000 Your dollar doesn't go as far.

00:21:49.000 It's not as strong.

00:21:50.000 And two, it means that we get to pay off our debt in inflated currency.

00:21:54.000 However, we're already in the middle of an inflationary spiral.

00:21:56.000 It has not ended yet.

00:21:57.000 And so the deliberate idea that we are going to essentially inflate the currency by weakening it against other currencies and making prices higher for Americans in the process, that's a lot of pain for what I think is not a lot of gain.

00:22:08.000 The reality is we are not going to, at this rate, inflate our way out of our national debt without crushing the economy.

00:22:15.000 The actual way that you are going to be able to get out of the national debt is by growing the economy by leaps and bounds, and that does not happen via tariff regimes.

00:22:23.000 That is, tariff regimes do not lead to massive economic growth.

00:22:27.000 There was something that was widely applied in Latin America, South America, during the 1970s and 80s.

00:22:32.000 It was called dependency theory.

00:22:33.000 It was actually a Marxist theory.

00:22:34.000 The basic idea was that all of these countries in South America were being ripped off by the more sophisticated Western countries who were trading in sophisticated products.

00:22:43.000 And then all of these countries in South America were trading out unsophisticated, unfinished materials, for example.

00:22:49.000 And this was leading to quote-unquote dependency.

00:22:53.000 And so what these countries did is they raised tariffs So, what does this look like?

00:23:06.000 Well, President Trump already, this is not a great political pitch, it just isn't.

00:23:10.000 He told NBC News on Saturday he does not care, for example, if foreign automakers raise their prices for U.S. consumers in response to new tariffs.

00:23:16.000 Quote, I couldn't care less.

00:23:17.000 Here's Kristen Welker reporting on President Trump.

00:23:19.000 I promise you, by the way, American consumers do care if their prices go up By leaps and bounds on the cars they want to buy for their families.

00:23:28.000 And the president telling me tariffs are, quote, absolutely permanent.

00:23:33.000 And on fears of foreign automakers raising prices, quote, I couldn't care less if they raise prices because people are going to start buying American-made cars.

00:23:43.000 Okay, autarky is bad economic policy.

00:23:45.000 It just is.

00:23:46.000 It's been bad economic policy forever.

00:23:47.000 The idea you can produce everything within America's borders for the same prices that you're currently getting is not true.

00:23:54.000 I understand that politicians have a stake in pretending that magic can happen in the economy whereby you shut down global trade and you don't import anything and everything gets produced right here in America and it's the same price and your life doesn't change in any way.

00:24:07.000 That is not true.

00:24:08.000 Things are going to get more expensive.

00:24:10.000 The product in the United States, by the way, gets worse because if you don't have competition with foreign competitors, there's no reason for you to make a product any better. 0.83

00:24:16.000 This is basically the story of the American car industry during the 1950s and 60s.

00:24:20.000 We dominated the planet in the 1950s.

00:24:22.000 By the end of the 1960s, Toyota was eating our lunch.

00:24:24.000 Why? Because we had massive tariffs on foreign automakers. 0.99

00:24:28.000 We had huge subsidies to American automakers.

00:24:30.000 Those subsidies were largely going to the UAW and other union members.

00:24:34.000 And then, when we finally lowered our trade barriers, better cars came in at a lower price and they completely swamped the American auto industry to the point that we had multiple bankruptcies in the 1970s.

00:24:43.000 And tariff policy, protectionist trade policy, is Overall, it can be good for certain sectors of an economy that are now receiving benefit at the hands of loss for the vast majority of American consumers.

00:24:55.000 But let's not pretend that it is good economic policy for the vast majority of American consumers.

00:25:00.000 It's just like any other subsidy.

00:25:01.000 If you tax everybody a buck and then you pay somebody $300 million, great for the guy who gets $300 million, not great for everybody who has to pay a buck.

00:25:09.000 And here we're talking about a lot more than a buck.

00:25:11.000 Tariffs, as it turns out, are not amazing for the vast majority of Americans.

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00:27:25.000 The price of core goods, by the way, in the Consumer Price Index, fell 1.7% between December 2011 and December 2019.

00:27:32.000 Over the same period, prices of core services like housing, healthcare, and education rose 2.7% per year.

00:27:37.000 That led to an inflation rate of 2% a year overall, according to the Wall Street Journal.

00:27:42.000 Goods prices shot up during the pandemic.

00:27:44.000 They peaked in summer 2023.

00:27:46.000 But in September, core goods prices started rising again by an average of 0.1% a month, including 0.2% in February.

00:27:54.000 So we already do have inflation.

00:27:56.000 And that inflation continues.

00:28:00.000 Now, the Trump administration, because of course they work for President Trump, they continue to push forward this vision of tariffs.

00:28:05.000 Peter Navarro, who's a big fan of tariffs and one of the president's advisors on trade policy, he said that we are going to make 600 billion dollars in tariff revenue.

00:28:13.000 This is not true.

00:28:14.000 It is not going to happen.

00:28:15.000 Here's Peter Navarro.

00:28:17.000 We're going to provide tax Okay, so, last year, tariffs in the United States were responsible for about $80 billion in revenue.

00:28:42.000 To get to $600 billion in tariff revenue, we would need to assume that people are going to continue consuming foreign products at the same rate.

00:28:49.000 It's sort of mutually exclusive ideas.

00:28:51.000 One is that we're going to continue to consume foreign products and thus the tariff revenue will increase but also we're not going to consume foreign products and we're going to buy American.

00:28:59.000 So one of those two things is not true.

00:29:02.000 Either we're going to redirect our consumption toward American products in which case the tariffs actually are not going to raise that much money or we're going to continue to buy foreign products in which case we're going to raise more money via the tariffs but we're not going to buy American.

00:29:14.000 Navarro and some of the team wants to have it both ways.

00:29:16.000 By the way even if we raise 600 billion dollars through tariffs You've heard from people that this is going to pay off our national debt.

00:29:21.000 It is not going to pay off our national debt.

00:29:22.000 Not remotely, not close.

00:29:23.000 We run a deficit every year in this country because we spend too much money.

00:29:28.000 It is not because of lack of tax revenue.

00:29:30.000 We pay an enormous amount of tax revenue in the United States.

00:29:32.000 It rises pretty much every year.

00:29:34.000 It just doesn't keep up with our spending.

00:29:36.000 And then Navarro suggested that tariffs are tax cuts.

00:29:39.000 They are not in fact tax cuts.

00:29:40.000 That is silly.

00:29:41.000 You can have tax cuts.

00:29:42.000 You can have tariffs.

00:29:42.000 Those are not the same thing.

00:29:44.000 Tariffs are in fact an increase The message is that tariffs are tax cuts.

00:30:01.000 Tariffs are jobs.

00:30:03.000 Tariffs are national security.

00:30:05.000 Tariffs are great.

00:30:06.000 For America, tariffs will make America great again.

00:30:09.000 Okay. Well, I mean, you can try this cell.

00:30:15.000 The bottom line is that if Americans feel in their pocketbook, they're not going to care about the cell.

00:30:20.000 Vice President J.D. Vance was on the campaign trail as well, and he was explaining why he was a fan of the tariffs while he was in Greenland.

00:30:29.000 For 40 years, a lot of our friends all over the world have used America as a piggy bank.

00:30:33.000 They have used us to absorb all of their excess economic production.

00:30:38.000 What does that mean for Americans?

00:30:40.000 For Americans, that's meant manufacturing jobs declining.

00:30:43.000 That's meant middle class wages going down.

00:30:45.000 That's meant whole towns that have been hollowed out by empty factories.

00:30:50.000 And that means an America that is less safe because our manufacturing isn't as powerful now as it was 30 years ago.

00:30:57.000 Okay, so that is not true.

00:31:00.000 J.D. Vance is a very, very smart person, and what he's saying here is just economically false.

00:31:05.000 When he says that our European friends have, in fact, taken money from us, he's correct on the defense side. 1.00

00:31:11.000 That is absolutely true.

00:31:12.000 They've been living off our largesse since World War II.

00:31:14.000 It's one of the reasons why President Trump is absolutely 100% correct to demand that NATO countries pay a certain percentage of their GDP for defense.

00:31:22.000 He's totally right about that.

00:31:23.000 However, when he suggests that the Europeans have used us to, quote, absorb all of their excess economic production.

00:31:31.000 That is not remotely capitalist language.

00:31:35.000 What exactly is excess economic production?

00:31:38.000 Please, I want to hear it.

00:31:40.000 Do you think that there's a factory in Germany that churns out things at zero cost, basically, for no reason, and then just ship them here?

00:31:48.000 And what, force us to buy them?

00:31:50.000 Well, what exactly is, please define, excess economic production?

00:31:54.000 The laws of supply and demand do not work that way.

00:31:57.000 If there is no demand for t-shirts, then no one is going to produce the t-shirts or they're an idiot.

00:32:01.000 It bankrupts them.

00:32:03.000 When he says that using America as a piggy bank to absorb all of their excess economic production, what does that mean?

00:32:09.000 That we are buying their stuff?

00:32:10.000 You know, like you buy a thing at the store, that's you absorbing their excess economic production?

00:32:15.000 When he says that's meant manufacturing jobs declining and middle class wages going down, middle class wages have in fact not gone down in the United States, adjusted, For the benefits that are received from the federal government.

00:32:25.000 In fact, much of the middle class in the United States over the course of the past 40 years has become upper middle class over the course of the last 40 years.

00:32:32.000 And as far as the manufacturing decline in the United States, the truth is that manufacturing production has gone up in the United States.

00:32:38.000 The number of jobs that it takes to make the manufacturing go up has gone down.

00:32:42.000 That is because of technology in the main.

00:32:43.000 It is not, in fact, because of outsourcing to China.

00:32:46.000 Now, again, you can make the argument we shouldn't outsource that stuff to China.

00:32:49.000 But to pretend that America was going to look In 2025, the way it looked in 1980, is not true.

00:32:57.000 So, again, you can make this case, it's just not going to be a particularly successful case.

00:33:01.000 When this was pointed out, by the way, then J.D. Vance, who spends an awful lot of time on X sort of fighting his critics, he said, it is this brains-ed liberalism pretending to conservatism that saw the U.S. go from the world's manufacturing superpower to one in which the PRC makes nearly twice as much as we do, and where if the small island of Taiwan fell to invasion, we'd be hurled into a Great Depression.

00:33:21.000 Now, I'm confused at the idea that if the United States had divested itself of global trade, then magically all manufacturing of semiconductors would be done in the United States as opposed to, say, in other places in Southeast Asia or in other places in Europe.

00:33:37.000 It turns out, actually, that the line of manufacture for, for example, superconductors, for semiconductors, goes through places in Europe as well.

00:33:46.000 There are many firms that are involved in the production of this sort of stuff.

00:33:49.000 He says, this is not just about a few union workers, this is about a globalized economic system in which the United States absorbs much of the producer surplus of the world.

00:33:55.000 Again, producer surplus is a term that does not appear in classical economics for a reason.

00:34:02.000 What is a producer surplus that is absorbed?

00:34:04.000 Who is sitting around just making extra stuff, hoping that people are going to quote-unquote absorb it?

00:34:10.000 He says, a system whose brittle supply chains exposed our economic vulnerability after COVID.

00:34:14.000 And speaking of those autoworkers, this guy has such contempt for, it was autoworkers of the 40s who allowed the United States to go from a peacetime economy to the best mass producer of aircraft the world has ever seen.

00:34:23.000 Is anyone making the suggestion that GM and Ford are going to be making our airplanes now?

00:34:27.000 Like the F-13, the F-47 that President Trump talks about is going to be manufactured by GM and Ford?

00:34:33.000 It is true, actually, that the auto manufacturers turned to wartime production during World War II.

00:34:39.000 And again, if you're doing tariffs in order to maintain our national security production, I'm with you.

00:34:44.000 That's fine.

00:34:45.000 But the idea that you need broad-based tariffs in order to protect what?

00:34:49.000 Not even Stellantis.

00:34:49.000 To protect Tesla, I guess.

00:34:51.000 Because Tesla is then going to make our national security apparatus if there's a global war.

00:34:56.000 And there's a lot of misdirects from the Vice President.

00:34:58.000 It just is.

00:35:00.000 And I'm not saying this because I want the President to fail on this stuff.

00:35:03.000 I'm saying this because I think that his economic plans here can harm him.

00:35:08.000 The worst thing that could happen to the Trump administration, by the way, the Vice President Vance Stu, who wants to run for president in 2028, the worst thing that could happen here is an economic downturn.

00:35:16.000 That is the worst thing that could happen.

00:35:18.000 As Axios points out, economic growth has flatlined so far this year.

00:35:21.000 Inflation has picked up.

00:35:22.000 Consumers expect both to get worse in the months ahead.

00:35:26.000 Stagflation is starting to be pretty openly discussed.

00:35:29.000 The backward-looking data lately has been distinctly stagflationary.

00:35:32.000 Consumer spending in the first two months of 2025 has been soft coming in.

00:35:36.000 0.6% below its December rate when adjusted for inflation.

00:35:39.000 A real-time estimate of GDP published by the Atlanta Fed is now pointing to economic activity shrinking at a 0.5% rate in Q1.

00:35:47.000 Meanwhile, the inflation measure favored by the Fed has risen at a 4.1% annual rate in the first two months of 2025, the highest in a year.

00:35:55.000 I'll repeat again.

00:35:57.000 If you like President Trump's agenda, he needs to avoid stepping on economic rakes.

00:36:01.000 He needs to avoid it.

00:36:05.000 The notion that you're going to rejigger all of global trade, and that's going to have no effect on American consumers, on the American economy, on American businesses.

00:36:14.000 That is a hell of a gamble.

00:36:16.000 Because either several hundred years of economics are wrong, or this policy is.

00:36:21.000 And we are apparently going to find out which.

00:36:23.000 Now, the good news again, I think President Trump, he sticks, he moves, I think he adjusts to the bad headlines.

00:36:28.000 If the economy downturns, do I think he's going to stick with these big, broad inflationary plans?

00:36:33.000 I don't.

00:36:34.000 I think that he's proved that over and over and over again, actually, over the course of his career.

00:36:38.000 However, that does not mean that this is, in fact, a wise move, and there is a reason that the markets are really, really nervous right now.

00:36:45.000 Meanwhile, there are, in fact, good things about to happen for the economy.

00:36:47.000 Just get out of the way. 0.64

00:36:49.000 Just get out of the way. 0.64

00:36:50.000 According to Politico, Senate GOP leaders are going to move as soon as Wednesday to begin advancing a budget plan that is the next key step to unlock President Trump's massive agenda through a party-line bill.

00:36:59.000 Under the ambitious timeline being privately considered by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the Senate would adopt its budget resolution before heading home for the weekend.

00:37:06.000 A marathon voterama could kick off on Thursday.

00:37:08.000 Four people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions.

00:37:11.000 Caution could slip to Friday, depending on how quickly the chamber moves.

00:37:14.000 In order to make all of that work, the Senate parliamentarian would need to sign off on the Republicans' plans to use a tactic known as the current policy baseline, which allows them to pursue trillions of dollars in tax cut extensions while claiming it doesn't cost anything.

00:37:24.000 Well, it doesn't cost anything.

00:37:25.000 That's silly.

00:37:26.000 That's the assumption.

00:37:27.000 of a current policy baseline is that what is current policy is in fact the baseline.

00:37:33.000 And so when the Senate parliamentarian has to decide on the cost of a bill saying that you're going to continue to extend the same level of taxation that has obtained in the United States for the last 10 years or so, that is not in fact some sort of weird economic trickery.

00:37:48.000 That makes perfect sense.

00:37:49.000 Otherwise, why not assume that the taxes are going to revert to like a 60% rate and then everything costs an enormous amount of money any time you want to lower the taxes or even maintain them as they currently are.

00:37:58.000 Senators believe they could secure such a ruling from the parliamentarian as soon as Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, though the meeting has yet to be scheduled.

00:38:05.000 This ruling is crucial because Republicans can't finalize the retool budget resolution until they know if that accounting gambit will, in fact, be approved.

00:38:11.000 Before Wednesday, the big six budget negotiators, that would be John Thune, Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo, Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith.

00:38:19.000 Treasury Secretary Scott Bessens and top White House economic advisor Kevin Hassett will huddle on Tuesday for their standing weekly meeting.

00:38:26.000 Now, again, the Senate parliamentarian could throw a wrench into this entire timeline if they suggest that they can't use the current policy baseline.

00:38:34.000 With a 53-seat majority, Republicans can still lose three votes and pass something, but a big, beautiful bill will certainly go a long way toward making investors feel more sanguinity about the future of economic performance under President Trump.

00:38:47.000 Again, business people are ready to invest.

00:38:49.000 They're ready to do it.

00:38:50.000 The uncertainty with regard to things like tariff policy are causing investors to hold back their dry powder.

00:38:56.000 And I spent a lot of time talking to investors and business people, and right now they are all very nervous because they don't know what tomorrow is going to bring.

00:39:03.000 Predictability in the markets is probably the number one factor in allowing investors to actually put their money where their mouth is.

00:39:10.000 And meanwhile, in absolutely extraordinary news, this really is crazy, a court has now banned Marine Le Pen, who is very, very likely to win the next election in France, from seeking public office for five years.

00:39:24.000 This is crazy.

00:39:25.000 And this is part and parcel of a broader attempt by left-wing judiciary activists across the globe to stop, quote-unquote, populist politicians from being able to run.

00:39:34.000 We saw it with President Trump, where the DOJ went after President Trump for supposed crimes that they then let Joe Biden off the hook for.

00:39:41.000 We saw it in New York, where a New York attorney general Filed a civil fraud lawsuit in an attempt to stop President Trump.

00:39:49.000 We have seen it in Brazil, where the entire judicial apparatus has been brought down on the head of Yair Bolsonaro, the former president of Brazil, in favor of Lula da Silva, who was then freed by that same exact judiciary.

00:40:00.000 We have seen it in Romania.

00:40:01.000 There was a candidate named Georgescu who won an election in 2024, and then the judiciary found, they said, that basically the election had been rigged by the Russians, and they just said that the election didn't count at all.

00:40:13.000 We have seen it in Israel.

00:40:14.000 Where the Attorney General of Israel has been going after Benjamin Netanyahu on specious charges for literally years at this point and the judiciary keeps saying that Netanyahu can't do like the basic functions of an executive like fire his Attorney General or fire anybody in the executive branch.

00:40:29.000 It's pretty crazy.

00:40:30.000 And now we are seeing it in France.

00:40:33.000 It is absolutely amazing to watch these unelected officials going out of their way to thwart the will of the people in supposed democracies.

00:40:43.000 It's really insane.

00:40:44.000 You want to talk about undermining democracy itself?

00:40:46.000 This undermines democracy because the reaction to this is, okay, but what if we just overthrow the judicial institutions?

00:40:51.000 That's going to be the reaction.

00:40:54.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, a French court convicted Marine Le Pen of misusing EU funds, sentencing her to prison and banning her from France's next presidential election.

00:41:03.000 Judges handed down a sentence on Monday that bars Le Pen from seeking public office for the next five years.

00:41:08.000 Le Pen also received a four-year prison sentence, half of which was suspended.

00:41:11.000 The ruling takes Le Pen out of contention for the 2027 race when President Emmanuel Macron finishes his second and final term.

00:41:17.000 She was expected to be the frontrunner.

00:41:19.000 The court ruled that Le Pen and other members of her party illegally used millions of euros in EU funding that was earmarked for assistance helping lawmakers in the EU Parliament with their work.

00:41:26.000 Instead, judges said, Le Pen and her lawmakers used the money to pay party staffers who weren't involved in work for Parliament.

00:41:33.000 So, just to get this straight, they're putting her in jail for two years and banning her from running for five because Her party, which sits in the European Parliament, was paid money by the EU to help lawmakers, and those aides did work for both Le Pen's party and the lawmakers, and this is worth banning Le Pen from the election entirely over.

00:41:54.000 Why do I feel like this is a put-up job?

00:41:57.000 I mean, the answer is because it's a put-up job.

00:41:59.000 Judges applied provisional execution to Le Pen's ban.

00:42:02.000 That means it takes effect immediately, even if Le Pen appeals Monday's ruling.

00:42:05.000 Her prison sentence remains suspended while any appeals are underway, which I think shows exactly where they are.

00:42:11.000 The big thing is get her out of the elections. 0.92

00:42:13.000 That is the big thing.

00:42:14.000 So they're suspending her jail sentence, but they are not suspending banning her from running.

00:42:19.000 I wonder what their goal is.

00:42:21.000 Hard to imagine.

00:42:22.000 Le Pen has denied the charges.

00:42:23.000 She testified it was appropriate for the assistants to perform other party-related work because they were political aides, not direct employees of the European Parliament.

00:42:30.000 In other words, They didn't work for- if the European Parliament wanted them working on just European Parliament stuff, maybe the European Parliament should have hired them as opposed to paying the party to do some of the work for the European Parliament.

00:42:40.000 Seems like a fairly strong defense.

00:42:43.000 Is the idea here that Marine Le Pen desperately needed a couple of million euros in order to pay off her political party?

00:42:50.000 I feel like she probably could have raised it.

00:42:52.000 Her party's pretty big in France.

00:42:54.000 And again, this is just the latest NATO member.

00:42:58.000 To reject a populist candidate over some sort of judicial intervention.

00:43:05.000 Pretty unbelievable.

00:43:07.000 And you want to talk about, again, undermining the argument that democracy must flourish in Europe.

00:43:12.000 This would be a great way to do it.

00:43:14.000 Meanwhile, these same courts all over the world are perfectly willing to allow left-wingers to do whatever the hell they want.

00:43:21.000 So, for example, a South African constitutional court has now decided that A controversial song featuring the lyrics, kill the boar and shoot the boar.

00:43:30.000 Boar is being a term for white farmers of originally German extraction.

00:43:36.000 That song actually is not a violation of the law in South Africa.

00:43:42.000 So it's not hate speech.

00:43:43.000 Shouting, singing, kill the boar and shoot the boar is apparently totally fine.

00:43:47.000 That is not incitement in any way, according to the UK Independent.

00:43:51.000 A decades-old anti-apartheid anthem, recently denounced by Elon Musk for allegedly inciting violence against white South Africans, returned to the spotlight last week following a ruling by the country's highest court.

00:44:00.000 The controversial song, featuring the lyrics, kill the boer and shoot the boer, boer being a term for a white farmer, has long been a source of contention in South Africa.

00:44:07.000 Its use has been primarily confined to political rallies of the Economic Freedom Fighters, EFF, a small far-left opposition party, but is not a small left-wing opposition party.

00:44:15.000 It is a party that has large-scale agreement with the ruling ANC.

00:44:20.000 The song's resurgence in the headlines follows a rally last Friday where EFF leaders sang the anthem.

00:44:26.000 The EFF maintains the song is a tribute to the struggle against apartheid and should not be interpreted literally.

00:44:30.000 This is one of the games that gets played in South Africa is that you either have to choose between the currently racist regime of South African government and the apartheid regime.

00:44:38.000 There's no in-between and there's no other solution.

00:44:40.000 The only answer is you have to be totally fine with kill the Boer or you have to be in favor of apartheid. 0.97

00:44:44.000 No answer in between, which is a lie.

00:44:46.000 It is not true.

00:44:47.000 We had the opportunity last week to sit down with Dr. Ernst Root.

00:44:50.000 He's an Afrikaner activist, author, and filmmaker from South Africa to discuss exactly what's going on in South Africa, which should terrify anyone who believes in equal protection of the laws.

00:44:59.000 Here's what it sounded like.

00:45:01.000 Dr. Root, thanks so much for stopping by.

00:45:02.000 I really appreciate it.

00:45:04.000 Thank you very much.

00:45:04.000 So for our listeners who are not familiar with South Africa, they might be seeing a tweet from From President Trump here or a tweet from from Elon Musk, but they don't actually know the roots of South African history And so they look at the racial issues that have arrived there and they have sort of a left-wing view That's been drilled into them that essentially this is just a matter of decolonization colonialism.

00:45:25.000 Why don't we go back to the beginning?

00:45:27.000 What are Afrikaners doing in South Africa? 1.00

00:45:30.000 Well, thank you Ben for having me on the show.

00:45:32.000 So the Afrikaners history in South Africa goes back to 1652 which is Before the Declaration of Independence.

00:45:40.000 So we've been there for hundreds of years, almost 400 years.

00:45:44.000 It started initially as a settlement or a refreshment station in the Cape, where Cape Town is today.

00:45:50.000 And eventually they were joined by other groups coming in from Europe, French, Germans, and then in smaller numbers, initially some other groups as well.

00:45:59.000 Later the English came, so we have a big white Anglo community in South Africa.

00:46:03.000 And we've been there for hundreds of years.

00:46:06.000 We're not Dutch anymore.

00:46:08.000 We have developed our own culture.

00:46:09.000 We have our own language.

00:46:10.000 We named ourselves after the continent.

00:46:12.000 We are the Afrikaners.

00:46:13.000 Our language is Afrikaans.

00:46:15.000 And we have our own literature, our own poetry, our own philosophy.

00:46:19.000 We have all these things that we have had for, again, developed for hundreds of years.

00:46:24.000 And over time, Obviously, in any country like this, our history is very similar to the American story, in a sense.

00:46:30.000 Also, with the pioneers, the great track that we had into the interior in America, you had the track to the West.

00:46:36.000 So, in a story like this, there's always friction, and it's almost like news.

00:46:41.000 People like to focus on the friction and ignore the cooperation.

00:46:45.000 But there were incredible stories of cooperation between communities in South Africa.

00:46:49.000 But when you talk about history in South Africa now, you're only allowed to talk about the friction.

00:46:54.000 When the truth is that we've had a history, a long history of cooperating with communities and so forth.

00:47:00.000 And yes, one thing led to another.

00:47:01.000 The Cape was colonized around the time of the Napoleonic Wars by the British.

00:47:08.000 We then moved in towards the interior.

00:47:10.000 We had some battles.

00:47:11.000 We had some treaties.

00:47:13.000 We bought land.

00:47:14.000 There were some areas that weren't settled, you're not allowed to say that, but South Africa wasn't densely populated back then.

00:47:20.000 We started the Boer Republics, the Transvaal and the Free State, which led to the Anglo-Boer War, after gold and diamonds were discovered, after which South Africa became a union in 1910, which means all the republics, the kingdoms of the African tribes and so forth, the colonies, everything was combined into one big whole, which became South Africa.

00:47:41.000 And then, of course, we had the apartheid history, and this is a very quick overview, leading to the negotiated settlement in 1994, which led to this new South Africa, which was celebrated all over the world as a miracle, and it was sort of the shining example of what the United Nations can do to save the country, and the Constitution was celebrated, and now we are here, where it turns out that that story This miracle story was not as shining as people would have liked it to be.

00:48:09.000 And I think it's that part that is puzzling to people because they've been taught the miracle story.

00:48:13.000 They've seen the movies about Nelson Mandela.

00:48:15.000 They've seen the films and TV shows about the great moment when apartheid ended.

00:48:20.000 And there's sort of been a ban publicly on talking about the problems that exist in South Africa post that

00:48:52.000 That by definition means you want to go back.

00:48:54.000 You want to go to the apartheid system, which no one wants to do.

00:48:58.000 The fact is that the apartheid system didn't work.

00:48:59.000 The current system isn't working and we need something else.

00:49:02.000 We need a better system.

00:49:03.000 But it's been, we are very happy that a lot of people are taking note about what's happening in South Africa because this has been going on for decades.

00:49:10.000 And I think the pendulum has swung so far to the one side or to the left, you could say that, that it has, it's the narrative about South Africa Well, So let's talk about the history of South Africa since the end of apartheid.

00:49:32.000 Again, that's where most people's story ends is end of apartheid, happily ever after. 0.89

00:49:36.000 What has actually happened?

00:49:38.000 What were the political transformations that took place in South Africa after the settlement one way I think to understand what's happening is the negotiations for the new South Africa started immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

00:49:50.000 And that was, you know, the end of history era.

00:49:52.000 And there was a sort of a narrative that capitalism and liberalism has won and it's going to be the standard, the gold standard all over the world eventually.

00:50:00.000 And we need to write a constitution for South Africa along these lines.

00:50:05.000 And the problem with that in South Africa is that it's a very big country.

00:50:09.000 It's very diverse.

00:50:10.000 It's more like Europe than like the U.S. in a certain sense.

00:50:13.000 It's almost as big as Western Europe, at least.

00:50:16.000 And there are many diverse nations and peoples living there.

00:50:19.000 And so the ruling party, the ANC, back then they said, the way we're going to do this is we want what they call a national democratic revolution.

00:50:29.000 And that essentially means using democracy as a way to promote socialist ideals.

00:50:35.000 And the way they did that, they said it's going to be a two-phase revolution.

00:50:38.000 Phase one is present ourselves as very liberal, very open-minded, very pro-democracy to get more and more support in South Africa and all over the world, which worked obviously brilliantly.

00:50:51.000 And then the theory or the strategy that they wrote it out is all on paper.

00:50:55.000 They said that once we have the power or the levers of power, as they put it, Then we should eventually move to the second phase of the revolution, and that means using the state mechanisms to become much more aggressive in implementing socialist policies.

00:51:10.000 And so the first big one was 1996, in America you call it DEI, we call it BEE, which is Black Economic Empowerment, but it has nothing to do with empowerment.

00:51:21.000 It's handing out social grants and it's discriminating against people who aren't black.

00:51:26.000 So they started with that in 1996, which became more and more aggressive over time, up to the point where there are now more than 140 raised laws in South Africa today.

00:51:37.000 So that was one strand.

00:51:38.000 Another strand was the property rights thing, where they said in 2018, we're going to start the process to change the property rights clause in the constitution so that the state can expropriate private property without compensation, which is just confiscation of property.

00:51:54.000 So that's another strand.

00:51:55.000 And then there's also the strand of the hate speech and real hate speech.

00:52:00.000 I mean, actually targeting a group of people, identifying them based on their ethnicity, and then saying, we need to go out and kill those people.

00:52:07.000 It's not offensive speech.

00:52:09.000 It's calling for the Boers to be slaughtered. 0.92

00:52:12.000 And that's combined with political speeches, with statements such as, and this is a direct quote, all white people are criminals and they should be treated as such. 0.90

00:52:20.000 And then these politicians would burst out chanting, kill the boer, kill the farmer, and the boer is of course a reference to the Afrikaner people.

00:52:27.000 And this has been getting worse and worse and worse, up to the point where, again, as I said, you cannot ignore what's happening in South Africa.

00:52:34.000 But what's really strange is how people in South Africa, and unfortunately in America and some other places, are trying to deny the existence of the problem by saying it doesn't exist.

00:52:44.000 So the farm killings, you have the names of the people who have been murdered.

00:52:47.000 I mean, I knew people who have been murdered on farms.

00:52:50.000 And for someone to say, well, this problem doesn't exist, it's really, really bizarre.

00:52:53.000 So let's talk about the details of that.

00:52:55.000 Because a few years ago, this started to pop up in the news.

00:52:57.000 I remember we covered it on the show at the time.

00:52:59.000 That's when you and I first got in contact actually.

00:53:01.000 And the take from the media is that statistically speaking, it's not a big deal.

00:53:06.000 Well, the counter-argument that you presented now is based on the idea that there are other problems as well, therefore you shouldn't talk about this problem.

00:53:30.000 And the people who are saying this is a problem, we should do something about this, are not saying that there aren't other problems.

00:53:35.000 So just to point out the lunacy in this, one way to respond to this is there's a big problem in South Africa with the poaching of rhinos.

00:53:43.000 But no one is saying, why are you talking about rhino poaching?

00:53:46.000 You are discriminating against elephants that are also being poached.

00:53:48.000 The fact is that rhinos...

00:53:56.000 And so to say that the farm murders have to stop is not to say that there isn't gang-related violence in Johannesburg or Cape Town.

00:54:03.000 But as far as the murders are concerned, it started in 1990 and it gradually got worse.

00:54:09.000 And there's been some debates on how to calculate it.

00:54:13.000 If you use the police statistics, I think the police data has Quite accurate in terms of the murders, but not in terms of the attacks.

00:54:20.000 The attacks are much more like this shadow number that you don't know of than what the police say.

00:54:25.000 But according to police data, if you look at a period of two years, there were two farm attacks every day in South Africa, during which two people were murdered every week.

00:54:35.000 And it's been going on and on and on up.

00:54:37.000 And it's a small community.

00:54:39.000 The farming communities, there are about 30,000 commercial farmers in South Africa.

00:54:43.000 So it's a small community, and if you're a farmer in South Africa, you know people who have been murdered.

00:54:47.000 That's just the reality.

00:54:49.000 Or you have been attacked yourself.

00:54:51.000 And I personally know people who've been attacked, people who've been killed, and so forth.

00:54:56.000 So that's the one aspect, is just the rate at which it's happening.

00:55:00.000 The second aspect is the brutality.

00:55:03.000 And it's the worst tortures you can imagine, really.

00:55:07.000 I can't think of Worse methods of torture than the ones that that we've seen in South Africa with gorging out of the eyes.

00:55:13.000 We've had One farmer where I grew up had they had a shower nozzle turn up on it's the highest, you know warm water They shoved the nozzle down his throat and there are many many many such examples I mean I can go on every every torture you can imagine and has been applied in these are race-based murders So so not all the victims are all white. 0.81

00:55:33.000 The victims are people of all races and I'm not aware of a black farmer that has been tortured.

00:55:39.000 So it's a big phenomenon, and a lot is happening, and surely not all of them are politically motivated.

00:55:45.000 Some of them certainly are, and we know that because sometimes the attackers write political slogans on the walls during these attacks.

00:55:53.000 Or they would chant slogans, and then the survivors would come and say, the attackers said something like, die white man, viva Malema, who's the politician who's chanting this, kill the boy, kill the farmer.

00:56:03.000 So some of them are Obviously and overtly politically motivated, and some of them probably aren't, or some of them aren't, but we don't know those statistics in terms of the motivations, but it's very, very alarming.

00:56:14.000 So when it comes to the politics here, and the excuse that you hear in the world media is when you see videos of Malema saying, kill the boar.

00:56:21.000 Number one, you'll hear, well, he doesn't actually mean it, it's just a song, who cares, which is absurd on its face.

00:56:27.000 But the other thing they'll say is, well, you know, he's part of a party that isn't actually the governing party.

00:56:31.000 ANC is the governing party.

00:56:32.000 So why are we focusing so much on Malema, for example?

00:56:35.000 Isn't ANC just fine?

00:56:37.000 Yeah, so he is, some people have called him the most influential, I think that's an exaggeration, but some have called him the most influential politician in Africa.

00:56:46.000 He's certainly one of the most influential.

00:56:49.000 And certainly in South Africa, his party has had some difficulty in the last election.

00:56:53.000 But The thing is, ideologically, he's not far away from the EFF.

00:56:57.000 In terms of rhetoric, he's much worse.

00:56:59.000 I mean, he's not far away from the ruling party, from the ANC.

00:57:01.000 In terms of rhetoric, it's worse.

00:57:02.000 And so, a few years ago, he made a speech where he's, one of the statements he made during that speech was, we are calling, we are going to slit the throat of whiteness. 0.95

00:57:12.000 And then everyone was applauding.

00:57:14.000 And then two days after, the president of South Africa, Siro Ramaphosa, publicly said, We invite this guy to come back and join our party because we can see that deep down in his heart, he's still a member of the ANC.

00:57:25.000 So we do find that the ruling party is a bit more subtle in its approach, although just as racist in terms of the policies that they are implementing.

00:57:33.000 And then we have these parties to the left of them that are much more radical.

00:57:37.000 But again, ideologically, there's not much of a difference.

00:57:40.000 They both The ruling party and the EFF think of people like Robert Mugabe as a euro, Mao Tse-tung they think is a euro, Joseph Stalin even, Maduro, Fidel Castro, all these communist examples.

00:57:53.000 And then they would not only say that these people are euros, they would say, we need to duplicate their policies, we need to bring their policies, but in South Africa it's going to work.

00:58:02.000 And as far as they would be willing to concede that it hasn't worked, they would say, this time it's going to work.

00:58:07.000 Well, one of the things that is fascinating about what's happening and horrifying is the connection of a sort of communist philosophy of economics with a Frantz Fanon decolonization, violence is the solution and transforms people spiritually attitude that seems to have crept in South Africa and is part of a sort of third world-ism that now spans not just South Africa but wide parts of the Middle East,

00:58:28.000 enormous parts of Asia, and it's part of a broader movement that we're seeing globally that basically suggests that the Anyone who is failing is a victim of capitalist excesses predominantly by white people, and all of that has to be overthrown. 0.98

00:58:44.000 Yes. So, Frantz Fanon has become more and more popular in South Africa, and it seems like in other places of the world, and his philosophy could be summarized in The Wretched of the Earth.

00:58:53.000 He says that, more or less, that if someone treats you like an animal, you don't need to behave like a human being towards that person.

00:59:01.000 So it's, in a way, a justification of violence.

00:59:03.000 And now the Marxist line on that is, if you are poor, it is because someone stole something from you.

00:59:10.000 And if you are wealthy or successful, it is because you exploited someone or you stole from someone.

00:59:14.000 So being poor by definition means that you are a victim, and being wealthy by definition means you're a perpetrator.

00:59:20.000 But then they blend that with race nationalism, saying that Only black people are poor, and only white people are rich, or that's the only ones we care about.

00:59:29.000 We only want to talk about wealthy white people and poor black people, when reality is much different than that, of course. 0.95

00:59:35.000 And so then they blend these two by saying that the poor and the black South Africans are the same thing, and whites and wealthy South Africans are the same thing, when that's not true.

00:59:45.000 And then they say now, and that's because they stole from us.

00:59:47.000 And so we need to take this stuff.

00:59:49.000 And then we have our own blend of philosophy in South Africa called the Zania critical theory.

00:59:56.000 Zania is sort of the leftist name for South Africa, which is taking some stuff from Frantz Fanon, taking some stuff from philosophers, critical race theory in America, Robin DiAngelo, people like that.

01:00:09.000 And then in a way justifying, you know, that we should we should apply violence.

01:00:13.000 And if you apply violence, it's actually morally it's it's appropriate to apply violence to the white white minority.

01:00:19.000 And you can see this manifesting domestically.

01:00:21.000 You can also see it in terms of the foreign policy in South Africa.

01:00:23.000 South Africa famously sponsored this ridiculous International Court of Justice assault on the Israeli government, suggesting that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza.

01:00:33.000 And there are deep connections between Hamas and the South African government, between Iran and the South African government.

01:00:38.000 There's presumably money that's changing hands along those lines as well.

01:00:41.000 Yes. So looking from a South African perspective at that court case, it was really bizarre to watch the arguments because they used the same legal team As was used in South Africa to defend the kill the Boer, kill the farmer chant.

01:00:55.000 So they would say in South Africa that chanting about murdering people based on their ethnicity is not hate speech.

01:01:02.000 And then they would say it's not because you have to look at the context.

01:01:05.000 So don't look at the words, look at the context.

01:01:08.000 And the context is, of course, apartheid.

01:01:09.000 So because there was apartheid, we can now talk about killing people in South Africa.

01:01:13.000 And then the same legal team, the same lawyer, argued in the case against Israel.

01:01:18.000 That do not look at the context.

01:01:20.000 So ignore October 7. That context is irrelevant.

01:01:23.000 And only look at this particular statement that was made by this particular soldier or something like that.

01:01:29.000 And so it's really bizarre.

01:01:30.000 And so the argument was that we need to do this because we have a strong moral conviction and we have a strong sense of morality.

01:01:37.000 And it's in the consistent application of our idea of morality that we have to take Israel to court. 0.88

01:01:44.000 When if you really look what that sense of morality is, and you compare the, and you look at the application there of how some of the world's worst dictators, historically, they regard as heroes.

01:01:54.000 Currently, they would defend them.

01:01:56.000 They would not arrest them when they come to South Africa, even though they are, the International Criminal Court have sanctions on them and so forth.

01:02:04.000 So it's really bizarre, but they seem to get away with that because there is this movement in the world that is So hell-bent either on participating in these type of activities or defending it and pretending that, you know, it's okay because morally it's appropriate to be on this side of the argument.

01:02:20.000 So, what are the answers in South Africa?

01:02:23.000 Obviously, the Trump administration is now talking about applying sanctions to South Africa based on the racial discrimination in the law, based on their threats to expropriate property from, essentially, white people.

01:02:34.000 What would the actual solutions be domestically?

01:02:37.000 What would a better-governed South Africa look like?

01:02:39.000 Yeah, that's the important question.

01:02:41.000 So, one way to answer it is in your book, Three Easy Steps to Destroy America.

01:02:46.000 It's, in a sense, the answer.

01:02:49.000 America, there's a sense of unity in America because of a shared philosophy, a shared culture, and a shared history.

01:02:56.000 The problem in South Africa is that we don't have any of those.

01:03:00.000 So we have different, the proper way to think of South Africa is a region.

01:03:04.000 So East Africa is a series of countries.

01:03:06.000 North Africa is a list of countries.

01:03:08.000 West Africa is a list of countries.

01:03:09.000 South Africa is one country.

01:03:11.000 But in South Africa, there are many nations living in South Africa.

01:03:14.000 And within these nations, they have shared philosophy, shared culture, shared history.

01:03:19.000 But as a whole, we don't have that.

01:03:21.000 And the problem is, if you govern, it's pretty much the equivalent of the European Union as the government of Europe.

01:03:27.000 If you approach things like that, necessarily it would lead to conflict and friction.

01:03:32.000 And so the only long-term solution is to work towards a more sustainable political dispensation or political system.

01:03:40.000 A federalism.

01:03:41.000 Yeah, exactly.

01:03:41.000 Federalism, a decentralized system that's based on the idea of self-governance that local communities or cultural communities or however you want to frame it can have a degree of self-governance.

01:03:52.000 Because currently we have this very big country, the distance from the north to the south is the distance from Rome to London.

01:03:58.000 And it's just as diverse, perhaps even more diverse than Western Europe.

01:04:02.000 It is more diverse than Western Europe.

01:04:04.000 And so we have this central government trying to enforce its ideas, a government that says our philosophy or ideology is a blend of race, nationalism and socialism.

01:04:15.000 As if that's never been tried before.

01:04:17.000 And so it's just not going to work.

01:04:19.000 It's going to lead to more and more friction.

01:04:20.000 So we need to move towards either federalism or some form of decentralization.

01:04:24.000 And that could take many forms.

01:04:26.000 I mean, the fact that that's even remotely controversial is sort of beyond me, because that is the way that it has historically worked.

01:04:32.000 It worked that way in the United States originally, where even the states, members of states had their own identities.

01:04:37.000 And that's why we have a very weak central government.

01:04:39.000 And that's why Virginia was governed different than Massachusetts, which is governed different from New Hampshire.

01:04:43.000 And the same thing is obviously true in Europe.

01:04:46.000 I mean, much of the angst about the EC and then the EU has been specifically about the idea that a French identity is different from a British identity.

01:04:53.000 And when you have people who don't share a philosophy or a history or a culture or an ideology or anything like that, what you end up with is one group having to dominate another group.

01:05:03.000 And in one form that can take is apartheid.

01:05:06.000 And a reverse form of that can be a racist regime that cracks down on white people.

01:05:09.000 And so the idea that – and what you're talking about here is not racial identitarianism.

01:05:14.000 What you're talking about here is cultural affinity.

01:05:18.000 And the fact that you have cultural affinities between people, that of course is totally – You're not suggesting that white is better than black, black is better than white, black can't live with white.

01:05:29.000 What you're saying is that there are cultures that are different, those cultures should be able to self-govern, and the idea that those cultures have to be put into a system that is ruled top-down in tyrannical fashion by either one group grabbing the gun or the other group grabbing the gun is unworkable.

01:05:42.000 Yes, so if democracy means two wolves and a lamb have to vote on what's for dinner, you shouldn't blame the lamb for losing faith in democracy.

01:05:50.000 But the good news is that's not democracy.

01:05:52.000 That's not what democracy is supposed to be.

01:05:54.000 Democracy is about self-governance.

01:05:56.000 And unfortunately, we have this tyranny of the majority that many Americans have warned about over the centuries, where some ideas are just enforced.

01:06:05.000 And let me give you a quick example.

01:06:07.000 We have the name changes in South Africa.

01:06:10.000 That's going to make the country better.

01:06:11.000 Just change all the offensive names, which actually started there, and now it's sort of flown, spilled over to America as well.

01:06:18.000 And so they change, there would be street names and city names named after murderers, people who had just murdered innocent people.

01:06:26.000 And if you ask the ruling party, how do you determine if something is offensive or not?

01:06:31.000 Like, Church Street is offensive, but the name of a murderer is not offensive, then they would say, we are the people, we represent the people, and therefore we decide.

01:06:40.000 And so it's just not going to work.

01:06:43.000 And I think the answer is to go to the Jefferson line of eternal solutions.

01:06:47.000 We're not trying to figure out some new ideological solution that no one has ever thought of.

01:06:52.000 It's been a principle since the beginning, since Rome and Athens and Jerusalem, the idea that there must be some form of self-governance.

01:07:00.000 People should be able to govern themselves.

01:07:02.000 And with that in mind, you should… Yeah, you should have mutual relations with other communities.

01:07:05.000 And yes, it is very politically incorrect to talk about that.

01:07:09.000 But we need to break that wall because that's the only way forward.

01:07:12.000 That's the only solution for South Africa. 0.97

01:07:14.000 I mean, again, I think that one of the things that people are trying to tie this into is sort of white nationalism or white supremacy.

01:07:20.000 And that's a category error.

01:07:23.000 That's not actually what you're talking about.

01:07:24.000 Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

01:07:25.000 And so they try to blend it with all these sort of these slogans that have been devised to sort of just Swipe something off the table.

01:07:34.000 I think there was a saying, one of the big Afrikaner entrepreneurs of the previous century, Anton Rupert, who was world famous in his days, said that you can't go to bed and rest assured at night if your neighbor is hungry.

01:07:48.000 And so that's also, and that's an important thing for us as the Afrikaner community.

01:07:52.000 We don't want to find a solution for us at the expense of everyone else, because that's not a solution either.

01:07:57.000 The solution must be a solution for everyone.

01:08:00.000 And I think what we have currently is a problem for everyone.

01:08:03.000 There are very few people who would still say that South Africa is working.

01:08:07.000 They would concede that it's failing.

01:08:09.000 The debate is, is it a failed state or a failing state?

01:08:12.000 But then they would sort of defend the government still.

01:08:16.000 And so it's not working for everyone, for anyone.

01:08:18.000 And so we need to find a solution that would work for people.

01:08:21.000 And the idea that bringing the government closer to the people It's an eternal solution.

01:08:26.000 It's something that has been the idea since the Roman Republic and before that.

01:08:29.000 It's basic Montesquieu, right?

01:08:30.000 I mean, there's nothing new here.

01:08:32.000 I mean, this is what all the American founders talked about.

01:08:33.000 The idea of your local government is going to be the government that is best for you, that you do have to have decentralization, that you do have to have local rule, that most of the things you agree on with your neighbors are going to be things that you agree on with your actual neighbors, not people who live thousands of miles away and share a completely different culture and affinity for different people.

01:08:50.000 The We live in a sort of bizarre world where you have to force yourself into these false choices again.

01:09:00.000 It's either apartheid or it's racial rule by the ANC and there's no in-between.

01:09:04.000 There's nothing else that can be done here.

01:09:06.000 And that obviously is untrue.

01:09:08.000 So is there any level of support inside South Africa for this sort of decentralization?

01:09:12.000 How does that level of support feel?

01:09:13.000 Yes, it's growing.

01:09:14.000 It's fast growing.

01:09:16.000 So firstly, it's not that controversial anymore to say, look, guys, this isn't working.

01:09:22.000 Again, you would have people in the media defending it.

01:09:24.000 There was a piece just published today in South Africa, how expropriation of property would rejuvenate the economy.

01:09:30.000 So you get that.

01:09:32.000 You still get that.

01:09:33.000 But yeah.

01:09:35.000 But the idea that it's not working is widely accepted.

01:09:38.000 I think the idea that we need to bring government closer to the people is also widely accepted.

01:09:44.000 People agree with that.

01:09:45.000 So there's talk about Cape secession, sort of the Western provinces, really a movement, they're saying we need to break away from South Africa.

01:09:51.000 The Zulus in KwaZulu-Natal are concerned that the central government isn't representing them.

01:09:58.000 There's a project called Waranya in the Northern Cape to develop an Africana city.

01:10:03.000 So there are already many such projects.

01:10:05.000 And I think that's naturally where things are headed.

01:10:08.000 There's going to be some form of a crash, you might say, or something's going to happen in South Africa.

01:10:13.000 And we must just ensure that when something happens, it's a turn to a better system rather than...

01:10:19.000 It's not chaotic violence and warfare in the streets or anything like that.

01:10:22.000 I think there's also a great example of how paper guarantees mean nothing if you don't have some level of cultural affinity and unity among the population.

01:10:33.000 When the South African Constitution was written, Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously suggested it was a better constitution than the Constitution of the United States.

01:10:39.000 It guaranteed things like a right to health care and a right to housing.

01:10:43.000 A right to a good environment.

01:10:45.000 Exactly. It's like a list of these rights.

01:10:47.000 That aren't actually rights, they're things that have to be provided to you by others.

01:10:50.000 It's not like a right to free speech, where essentially a right to free speech means you have a duty not to infringe on my speech.

01:10:55.000 A right to housing means you have a duty to provide me housing.

01:10:58.000 And it turns out that none of that materialized.

01:11:00.000 There's a lack of housing.

01:11:00.000 It turns out that the right to healthcare doesn't mean that healthcare in South Africa magically materializes in amazing ways, where the healthcare is just tremendous.

01:11:09.000 All these sorts of paper ideas that were put forward at the expense of realism.

01:11:14.000 In the 1990s, in places like South Africa, have completely fallen.

01:11:17.000 Exactly. And so, and you've spoken about this a lot.

01:11:20.000 It's one thing to talk about rights, and rights are great.

01:11:22.000 But if there's no focus on responsibility added to that, then the rights don't mean anything.

01:11:27.000 So almost all of these rights, in terms of the difference between de jure and de facto, the de facto reality has gotten worse.

01:11:33.000 Constitution guarantees a right to health care, but in reality, the health system is deteriorating.

01:11:38.000 The Constitution guarantees Good education, but in reality, the schools are failing.

01:11:42.000 And we can go down the list.

01:11:45.000 And so, this idea that if you have something good written as a document, that means, you know, the country has been saved is very naive.

01:11:53.000 And I think maybe it's one of the consequences of modern ideologies that, you know, you look at the text and that sort of gives you an overview of what's happening.

01:12:00.000 But you have to look at what's happening in reality and compare those two.

01:12:03.000 And the reality between the written document and the What we call the actual constitution and the written constitution has gone like this.

01:12:11.000 It's just, it's not comparable anymore.

01:12:13.000 And so the question is then what does it, it's a great document, but what does it mean to have a great document if that's just not reality?

01:12:19.000 And I think there's an important lesson in that also, that, and this is something that Edmund Burke cautioned against with the French Revolution, saying it's one thing to have great theory, but you need to look at experience and what's happening in the real world before you look at the theory.

01:12:34.000 For sure, and one of the things Burke warned about was the idea that these sort of free-floating rights were equally applicable at all times, in all places, without any roots in the actual soil of a culture.

01:12:44.000 I mean, the idea of Western-based rights are based in a particular ideology of the West that is an outgrowth of thousands of years of history, and they sort of magically manifest anywhere you drop them is obviously untrue.

01:12:55.000 You have to put in place institutions, you have to develop cultures around them, and if those things don't happen, then they don't mean anything.

01:13:00.000 It's just a paper right.

01:13:01.000 So, you're looking at what the Trump administration is doing.

01:13:04.000 Obviously, the State Department is now sounding off pretty openly about this under Secretary Rubio.

01:13:08.000 What would you like to see the Trump administration do?

01:13:10.000 Thank you.

01:13:10.000 So, we are very grateful for the focus they're putting on what's happening in South Africa.

01:13:16.000 They have announced a process of refugee status to farmers.

01:13:21.000 Now, that in a certain sense is good because there are people who want to leave.

01:13:25.000 But I think our message to them is a lot of people and the majority wouldn't want to leave.

01:13:29.000 It's almost like saying to Americans, listen, there's trouble in America.

01:13:33.000 You need to all move to Europe or something like that.

01:13:35.000 So, I mean, we've been there for hundreds of years.

01:13:37.000 That's where our culture became, was developed.

01:13:39.000 That's where our ancestors are buried.

01:13:42.000 And so we are very attached to Africa.

01:13:44.000 And we are concerned that if we just leave in big numbers, then we will dissolve as a community.

01:13:48.000 And we want to see a future for our community.

01:13:51.000 But there are people who want to leave.

01:13:52.000 And if they want to leave, that's fine.

01:13:54.000 But I think a more sustainable approach would be to work towards some form of dispensational change, recognizing firstly that it's not working, that the problem is wider than just not that the wrong person is the president of the country.

01:14:09.000 If you put a white liberal, make a white liberal the president of South Africa, it's not going to work either.

01:14:15.000 And because it's a system problem and we need to work towards a better system.

01:14:20.000 And we don't want other countries to solve our problems on our behalf.

01:14:23.000 But I think firstly, a recognition that there needs to be a more decentralized solution.

01:14:29.000 And then secondly, support for initiatives in South Africa to try to promote this.

01:14:36.000 I think that would be good.

01:14:37.000 And so, for a normal American who's watching this, and I think that we've talked about this, the fact that what's happening in South Africa is a bleeding edge indicator of sort of trends that are growing across the world, also in the West.

01:14:48.000 I mean, this is an internal battle in the West that is happening right now about what exactly the West means, what are the West's values.

01:14:55.000 Do the West's values require that you essentially sacrifice all the values of the West on behalf of empty rhetoric about About rights, or about constitutional guarantees, or about that sort of stuff.

01:15:07.000 What does it mean to be a member of a culture?

01:15:09.000 What does it mean to be a member of the West?

01:15:10.000 What do you recommend that, you know, resources for Americans want to learn more about this?

01:15:15.000 And also, if Americans want to help, because this actually does have ramifications far beyond what's going on just in South Africa.

01:15:20.000 Yeah, so there are many ways in which people can help.

01:15:25.000 One way is just to help to talk about this.

01:15:26.000 The more people talk about this, The better, the easier it is to get solutions, the easier it is, for example, for the government to do something or people in Europe to support.

01:15:35.000 So help spread the message.

01:15:36.000 That's one way.

01:15:38.000 But another way is there are many institutions in South Africa.

01:15:41.000 If people spend a little time looking into what's happening in South Africa, they will find that there are a lot of institutions who are working towards some form of decentralization or working towards community organizing, towards safety initiatives, towards things like that.

01:15:55.000 And I think support for such Such institutions will definitely go a long way.

01:15:59.000 Well, Dr. Ernst Roots, really appreciate you being here and thanks for what you're doing.

01:16:03.000 Thank you very much.

01:16:03.000 Thank you for having me on the show.

01:16:05.000 All righty, guys.

01:16:06.000 Coming up, Representative Jasmine Crockett, the hot new face of the Democratic Party. 0.98

01:16:10.000 She just goes totally racist. 1.00

01:16:12.000 Plus, we'll jump into the mailbag.

01:16:13.000 Remember, you can only ask questions in the mailbag and hear my answers if you are a member over at Daily Wire.

01:16:17.000 Plus, if you're not, now's the moment.

01:16:18.000 Become a member.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - March 31, 2025

BREAKING: Le Pen BANNED?!?

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