The Ben Shapiro Show - Candace Goes To Russia!

00:00:00.000 Candace Owens is headed on vacation to Russia.

00:00:04.000 It's kind of a weird choice.

00:00:05.000 Most people head to Hawaii or maybe to the Caribbean or hell to Montana.

00:00:09.000 She is headed over to St. Petersburg.

00:00:11.000 Wait, who else has headed over to Russia in the recent past?

00:00:15.000 Oh, yeah.

00:00:16.000 And who else has been promoting the ideas of Vladimir Putin and his government, a government that seeks the destruction of America's power in the world?

00:00:24.000 Well, I like that one and maybe also like that one.

00:00:29.000 Yeah, that one too.

00:00:32.000 Yes, something is going on, and it's been going on for a while.

00:00:35.000 That thing is called ideological subversion, and it's an actual threat to the United States of America.

00:00:39.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show. 0.90

00:00:50.000 So, we all know that Candace Owens hates a lot of things like the truth, basic scientific knowledge, proper pronunciation of words, Charlie Kirk's widow, and naturally the Jews. 0.99

00:01:00.000 But undergirding all of that is a conspiratorial anti American worldview.

00:01:05.000 You see, as we'll get to, Candace really does not like America, and neither do her ideological allies.

00:01:11.000 And that is why she is headed on over to Russia to visit her friends, her ideological handlers and sponsors over in Russia.

00:01:17.000 It's not why she said she's headed to Russia, but here she was on her show explaining that she is headed on over to Russia.

00:01:23.000 For the fishing.

00:01:27.000 I'm going to be off air next week.

00:01:29.000 Next week, I'm actually going to St. Petersburg.

00:01:32.000 I'm so excited for that.

00:01:34.000 I've been wanting to go to St. Petersburg for a very, very long time, just as a Christian in general, just to see some of those cathedrals and churches.

00:01:42.000 And we're finally making it happen in a family trip.

00:01:44.000 And so that's happening.

00:01:45.000 So I'll be off air for an entire week.

00:01:46.000 I can't wait for the headlines of people saying I'm, I guess, funded by Iran and Russia and probably Pakistan, obviously.

00:01:54.000 Not true.

00:01:54.000 My husband's been to Russia quite a few times because he fishes.

00:01:59.000 For the fishing.

00:02:00.000 Now, I'm not saying that Candace is funded by all of these governments.

00:02:00.000 For the fishing.

00:02:03.000 I'm saying that she has ideological solidarity with those governments.

00:02:06.000 Because, see, here's the thing.

00:02:07.000 Our current status with Russia, not great.

00:02:10.000 Obviously, St. Petersburg itself has been under Ukrainian attack recently.

00:02:14.000 And not just that, the United States government has a problem with the Russian government.

00:02:18.000 The State Department currently says that Americans should not travel to Russia for literally any reason.

00:02:24.000 Quote, U.S. citizens are at risk due to terrorism, unrest, wrongful detention, and other threats.

00:02:29.000 U.S. citizens in Russia should leave immediately.

00:02:32.000 One of the reasons, by the way, is because they say that the Russian embassy, the American embassy in Russia, will not be able to help you if you go over there and you get in trouble with the Russian government.

00:02:40.000 In fact, Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary, pointed out that the United States has severe sanctions on Russia right now for a reason.

00:02:48.000 The Biden administration put on very, what I would call mild sanctions because they were worried about gasoline prices going up into an election.

00:02:58.000 It would be.

00:02:59.000 And unstatesmanlike sanctions.

00:03:02.000 Probably the worst national security advisor in the history of the country, Jake Sullivan, in an act of bravery on his way out the door in January, raised the sanction level on behalf of the Trump administration.

00:03:15.000 We let those in situ when we took office.

00:03:20.000 They have fast forward to October, and President Trump instructed me to sanction the two largest Russian oil companies, Luke Oil and Rosneft, which we did.

00:03:32.000 No other government has done that.

00:03:34.000 So, no one has done more sanctions than the Trump administration on Russian oil.

00:03:42.000 Now, listen, I get that there are a lot of people out there who think, okay, fine, famous rich person goes to any country they want, like Russia.

00:03:48.000 No risk there.

00:03:49.000 Okay.

00:03:50.000 My security team would not let me travel to Russia because there's a pretty high likelihood that I would be wrongly arrested or maybe some sort of polonium would be put in my tea or something.

00:04:00.000 Candace Owens traipses in, as did, of course, Tucker Carlson.

00:04:03.000 No problem. 1.00

00:04:03.000 And there's a reason for that, and that is because they are useful idiots for the Russian regime. 1.00

00:04:07.000 They agree with the Russian regime that America is terrible and morally deficient. 1.00

00:04:10.000 They agree that American power in the world is evil.

00:04:13.000 Now, again, I know a lot of people are speculating that people like a Candace or like a Tucker, what happened to them?

00:04:18.000 It must have been they were paid off, but I don't think that's the case.

00:04:20.000 I will grant them their sincerity.

00:04:22.000 I think they honestly believe all the terrible things they're saying. 0.97

00:04:25.000 So do the Russians.

00:04:26.000 So, what actually is Candace doing in Russia? 0.64

00:04:28.000 She's not going there for the fishing.

00:04:30.000 Reporter Ryan Morrow reported on X that Candace is actually attending and speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum alongside.

00:04:37.000 Vladimir Putin, Alexander Dugin, who we'll get to in a moment, sort of known as Putin's brain, the great theorist of Russian supremacism, and other members of the Russian government and intel community.

00:04:48.000 According to Morrow, he reports that the St. Petersburg Forum is, quote, a known hub for Russian intel.

00:04:53.000 Leaked docs show its panels serve as recruitment pipelines for foreign collaborators.

00:04:57.000 Top goals include state directed soft power programs.

00:05:01.000 As Morrow reports, SPIEF is a hotspot for Russian intelligence.

00:05:08.000 The moderator for Candace's panel, a person named Maria Sittel, is sanctioned by the EU for her involvement in Russia's hybrid warfare, which targets European audiences with information manipulation.

00:05:18.000 Her co panelist, a person named Alexander Zharov, is sanctioned by the United States because he's one of the most powerful propagandists for the Russian government.

00:05:27.000 Another co panelist is sanctioned by the United States and is the deputy chairman of the Russian parliament, the Duma.

00:05:32.000 Others who are joining Candace, according to the reporter Ryan Morrow, at SPIEF in Russia are Andrei.

00:05:38.000 Bezrikov, who was arrested as a deep cover Russian spy in the United States in 2010.

00:05:42.000 He literally inspired the show The Americans.

00:05:44.000 And also Scott Ritter, a former UN inspector and convicted pedophile who is currently under FBI investigation for acting as a foreign agent of Russia.

00:05:53.000 And of course, none of this should be a shock.

00:05:55.000 You'll recall that recently Candace Owens interviewed Hunter Biden.

00:05:59.000 Very warm interview.

00:06:00.000 Very, very strange.

00:06:02.000 And after her interview, Laura Loomer correctly reports that Russia Today, which is the Russian state media, Posted 17 separate clips of Candace's interview with Hunter Biden, which, of course, is not a shock because she is an ideological ally.

00:06:15.000 They do the same thing with Tucker Carlson.

00:06:18.000 And Tucker is another one of these Russian allies, pretty obviously and pretty clearly.

00:06:22.000 I mean, he's been spending years at this point just parroting whatever Russia's perspective on the world is, like over and over and over again.

00:06:32.000 In 2022, it was actually widely reported that the Kremlin had issued a memo saying, It is essential to use as much as possible of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host.

00:06:41.000 Tucker Carlson.

00:06:43.000 That's going back to 2022.

00:06:45.000 There's a reason for that.

00:06:46.000 Here was Tucker in 2022.

00:06:49.000 Before that happens, it might be worth asking yourself, since it is getting pretty serious, what is this really about?

00:06:54.000 Why do I hate Putin so much?

00:06:56.000 Has Putin ever called me a racist?

00:06:58.000 Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him?

00:07:01.000 Has he shipped every middle class job in my town to Russia?

00:07:05.000 Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years?

00:07:10.000 Is he teaching my children to embrace racial discrimination?

00:07:13.000 Is he making fentanyl?

00:07:15.000 Is he trying to snuff out Christianity? 0.97

00:07:17.000 Does he eat dogs? 1.00

00:07:19.000 These are fair questions.

00:07:20.000 And the answer to all of them is no.

00:07:22.000 Vladimir Putin didn't do any of that.

00:07:24.000 So why does Permanent Washington hate him so much?

00:07:27.000 If you've been watching the news, you know that Putin is having a border dispute with a nation called Ukraine.

00:07:34.000 So Permanent Washington hates Putin.

00:07:35.000 This is again, Tucker, back when he was on Fox News.

00:07:37.000 This is why when people say, what happened to Tucker?

00:07:39.000 The answer is nothing happened to Tucker.

00:07:41.000 Tucker always believed these things.

00:07:43.000 He just had people in seats above him at Fox.

00:07:46.000 Preventing him from going fully off the rails.

00:07:48.000 And so the Tucker you're seeing today is, in fact, the real Tucker.

00:07:52.000 And Russia loves that real Tucker because he agrees with them, obviously, which is why Tucker in 2024 headed on over to Russia and praised the magic of their Russian operated shopping carts because the man's never been to an Aldi's.

00:08:05.000 He is one of the most silver spoon people in America, astonished by the workings of basic grocery stores.

00:08:14.000 So, a longstanding feature, maybe the longest.

00:08:17.000 Feature of Cold War propaganda in the West was the Soviet grocery store. 0.90

00:08:23.000 No products, no choices, shoddily made things, and it wasn't actually propaganda, it was real.

00:08:31.000 And you can look up the pictures on the internet if you want.

00:08:34.000 So, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at a contemporary modern day 2024 Russian grocery store two years into sanctions.

00:08:43.000 Here we go.

00:08:46.000 All right.

00:08:47.000 Here we go.

00:08:48.000 So, I guess you put in 10 rubles here and you get it back when you put the cart back.

00:08:56.000 So, it's free, but there's an incentive to return it and not just bring it to your homeless encampment.

00:09:02.000 Okay.

00:09:03.000 This is the.

00:09:05.000 Grocery card escalator.

00:09:07.000 I still can't believe this didn't end his credibility in the conservative movement.

00:09:11.000 I mean, it's just insane to me.

00:09:12.000 He literally went over to Russia and was astonished at things that you can see at your local Aldi's or at Target.

00:09:18.000 Like, this is this silver spoon, Walter Durante.

00:09:22.000 Unbelievable.

00:09:23.000 Unbelievable.

00:09:24.000 In just a second, we'll get into why all of this is happening and also why is it important?

00:09:28.000 Why should you care?

00:09:29.000 And you really, really should.

00:09:30.000 It's a threat to the country.

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00:12:03.000 Well, what is actually happening here, right?

00:12:05.000 That's the big question.

00:12:06.000 Why is all this happening?

00:12:07.000 Candace and Tucker, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon, Thomas Massey, MTG.

00:12:12.000 Why all this warmth toward Russia?

00:12:14.000 And the answer is ideological kinship.

00:12:16.000 So we understand that, and I'll get to that in a moment, but The really big question here is why is this important?

00:12:21.000 Well, we've been watching over the past several years, really over the past decade, and it feels like everything in America is kind of falling apart, right?

00:12:28.000 I mean, it feels like that.

00:12:29.000 We see it every day.

00:12:30.000 The polarization is extraordinary.

00:12:32.000 We've seen institutional distrust and economic unrest and civil unrest.

00:12:36.000 And a lot of that is not a coincidence.

00:12:38.000 It is part of an actual plan.

00:12:39.000 Now, again, that doesn't mean everything we're seeing in America is dictated by the Russian government.

00:12:43.000 They don't have that kind of power.

00:12:45.000 They didn't rig the 2016 election or some nonsense like that.

00:12:48.000 And a lot of the institutional distrust that Americans have right now is earned by Russiagate or the government's response to COVID or the Black Lives Matter scam or the cover up of Joe Biden's mental incompetence.

00:12:59.000 A lot of blame to go around for institutional distrust.

00:13:02.000 But here's the thing. 0.90

00:13:03.000 Our enemies, Russia, China, Iran, they wait for vulnerability in the United States and then they exacerbate divides and they exploit them. 0.85

00:13:13.000 Here's how the world works through the lens of actual legitimate influence operations. 0.76

00:13:18.000 These are real things.

00:13:19.000 They've been going on for decades.

00:13:21.000 There's a guy named Yuri Bezmanov, who's a Soviet informant and KGB operative.

00:13:25.000 He defected to the United States in the early 70s.

00:13:28.000 In the 1984 interview that's become pretty famous online, titled Deception Was My Job, Bezmanov laid out, Before stages of what he called ideological subversion that were created by radical Soviet Marxists to indoctrinate and weaken nations from within and then destroy them.

00:13:43.000 Listen to how he lays out the operation here.

00:13:47.000 To change the perception of reality of every American to such an extent that despite the abundance of information, no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their families, their community, and their country.

00:14:07.000 It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and it's divided in four basic stages.

00:14:17.000 The first one being demoralization.

00:14:19.000 It takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralize a nation.

00:14:22.000 Why that many years?

00:14:24.000 Because this is the minimum number of years which requires to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy exposed to the ideology of The enemy.

00:14:38.000 In other words, Marxism Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism, American patriotism.

00:14:52.000 The result?

00:14:53.000 The result you can see.

00:14:54.000 Most of the people who graduated in the 60s, dropouts or half baked intellectuals, are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, educational system.

00:15:07.000 You are stuck with them.

00:15:08.000 You cannot get rid of them.

00:15:10.000 They are contaminated.

00:15:11.000 They are programmed to think and react to certain stimuli in a certain pattern.

00:15:17.000 You cannot change their mind. 0.77

00:15:18.000 Even if you expose them to authentic information, even if you prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. 0.89

00:15:31.000 Now, demoralization, as Bezanov spells it out, is followed by stage two, which is destabilization. 0.90

00:15:37.000 Destabilization is where basically you create the preconditions for stage three, which is a crisis.

00:15:43.000 Like a breakdown.

00:15:44.000 And then stage four is normalization of the new set of values.

00:15:46.000 So, right now, we are still in the late stages of stage one demoralization.

00:15:50.000 We have had several generations of indoctrination at the highest levels in America into anti Americanism.

00:15:56.000 And that destabilization requires friends, it requires ideological allies.

00:16:01.000 Now, we could hit destabilization any moment.

00:16:03.000 All it takes is a little push and we're in crisis.

00:16:06.000 Maybe there's an economic downturn. 0.97

00:16:07.000 Maybe there's foreign chaos.

00:16:10.000 But right now, our enemies are, as they always have, and remember, Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent, our enemies are laser focused on demoralizing us.

00:16:17.000 And Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon and Alex Jones, all the people that Russia has been openly using and allying with, these are demoralization agents.

00:16:26.000 They are doing the work.

00:16:28.000 Russia needs them and is using them, and they're not shy about this.

00:16:31.000 So, Alexander Dugan has been mentioned several times on the show.

00:16:35.000 Reminder he's widely known as Vladimir Putin's brain, sort of an in house philosopher for Vladimir Putin.

00:16:41.000 He's appeared himself on a wide variety of the woke right shows, ranging from Tucker to Alex Jones.

00:16:47.000 He actually got his start as the co founder of something called the National Bolshevik Party, which was essentially a fascist party calling for restored Russian empire and centralized economics.

00:16:56.000 Well, while he was working with that group in 1997, He wrote a book called Foundations of Geopolitics.

00:17:01.000 That book was then apparently used as a textbook at the General Staff Academy in Russia.

00:17:06.000 So this became part of their actual policy.

00:17:08.000 I want to read you a quote from that book, Foundations of Geopolitics in 1997 by Alexander Dugan.

00:17:14.000 And you see if you can't spot what's going on.

00:17:16.000 Quote, It is especially important to bring geopolitical turmoil into the U.S. domestic reality by encouraging all kinds of separatism, various ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements of extremist, racist, and sectarian groups.

00:17:31.000 That destabilizes internal political processes in the United States.

00:17:35.000 At the same time, it makes sense to support isolationist tendencies in U.S. politics, the theses of those often right wing Republican circles that believe the U.S. should confine itself to its domestic problems.

00:17:47.000 This state of affairs is highly advantageous to Russia, even if isolationism is carried out within the original Monroe Doctrine wording, i.e., if the U.S. limits its influence to two Americas.

00:17:57.000 This does not mean Eurasia, meaning Russia, should give up on destabilizing the Latin American world by seeking to remove certain regions from U.S. control.

00:18:05.000 All levels of geopolitical pressure on the United States must be engaged simultaneously.

00:18:09.000 He's talking about demoralization.

00:18:10.000 That's what he's talking about.

00:18:12.000 Find allies who are stumping for America to be weaker in the world, actively generate tension, actively generate sectarianism in American politics, actively pit Americans against one another, and find friends on the right wing side of the aisle to help foment all of that. 0.52

00:18:30.000 And the good news for Russia is that in the era of the internet, when there really are No reliable fact checkers when the wave of information that Bezmenov talks about is unstoppable.

00:18:40.000 There's just so much conflicting stuff out there.

00:18:42.000 It's very difficult for anyone who is not deeply in this stuff to find the truth.

00:18:47.000 It's a perfect environment for the spreading of this kind of demoralization and chaos.

00:18:54.000 And you can see who the friends are.

00:18:56.000 There was Alex Jones not all that long ago talking with Dugan and rediscovering what it meant to be American, how great it was to be America because of Russia.

00:19:08.000 Russia, we need to be more like Russia, actually.

00:19:12.000 Let's be clear.

00:19:13.000 You were writing this 30 years ago and your ideas got picked up.

00:19:17.000 And so a lot of right wingers said, no, Russia's not really becoming traditionalist or Christian.

00:19:21.000 That's fake.

00:19:22.000 No, it's real.

00:19:23.000 Everybody's seen it now in action.

00:19:25.000 Everybody else has the same desire.

00:19:27.000 It's not that we're adopting Russian propaganda, we're adopting who we already were and rediscovering who we are together. 0.94

00:19:36.000 And it's just a wonderful thing because they intended to have Western civilization and Christianity buried. 0.71

00:19:43.000 But by taking us to the edge of oblivion, it actually made us realize how precious it was because you don't know what you've lost until it's gone. 0.94

00:19:51.000 Is that what you're saying?

00:19:53.000 So we need to rethink and revise Western modernity. 0.87

00:19:58.000 Modernity was absolutely wrong because it has abandoned Christianity. 0.79

00:20:08.000 Modernity was a mistake. 0.98

00:20:10.000 Russia, as leader of the Christian world, which, by the way, is an absurdity. 0.84

00:20:13.000 As we'll see, this is repeated constantly by the woke right influencer class who are totally aligned with the Russian government on all of this.

00:20:21.000 I mean, here was Tucker Carlson, not all that long ago, doing an interview with Alexander Dugan and painting him as a victim of censorship and a non regime aligned philosopher and, you know, just a true sort of platonic figure.

00:20:36.000 Alexander Dugan is a 62 year old Russian academic philosopher.

00:20:42.000 He spent his life in Moscow.

00:20:44.000 He was an anti Soviet dissident as a young man.

00:20:47.000 And now he is famous the world over, in the English language press anyway, as Putin's brain.

00:20:53.000 But he is not a political figure here in Russia.

00:20:55.000 He is, once again, a philosopher.

00:20:58.000 And his ideas are deeply offensive to some people.

00:21:05.000 The bad people.

00:21:06.000 So Alexander Dugan is.

00:21:07.000 Tucker says that Alexander Dugan is good, right?

00:21:10.000 Okay.

00:21:11.000 Dugan, by the West, with Tucker, says that actually the reason the West hates Vladimir Putin is not because he's an aggressive dictator, a former KGB agent who has fostered chaos and evil all over the world and is currently involved in the invasion of a sovereign country that has resulted in the deaths.

00:21:26.000 Of at least half a million people.

00:21:28.000 And meanwhile, he's threatening other Eastern European countries as well, spreading chaos down into Africa, spreading chaos into the Middle East.

00:21:34.000 Now, the reason, according to Tucker and Dugan, that the West has a problem with Vladimir Putin is because actually, Vladimir Putin is a true traditionalist.

00:21:44.000 He's somebody who truly stands up for, I mean, when he's not poisoning his enemies, that's what he's doing.

00:21:51.000 80 odd years of defending Russia.

00:21:55.000 They hated Russia.

00:21:57.000 What was that?

00:21:58.000 Why the change?

00:21:59.000 I think, um, uh, I think that, um, first of all, Putin is traditional leader.

00:22:06.000 So Putin, uh, when he came to power, from the very beginning, he started to, uh, to, to extract the, um, our country, the Russia from the global influence.

00:22:21.000 So he started to contradict to global progressist agenda.

00:22:27.000 And these people who supported, uh, Soviet Union, they were progressists and they are now progressists. 0.65

00:22:34.000 So they have felt that now they are dealing with someone who doesn't share this progressist agenda and who tried and with success to restore traditional values, sovereignty of the state, Christianity.

00:23:00.000 Well, meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene is doing the same exact routine. 0.63

00:23:03.000 She, of course, is an advocate for Russia as somehow a Christian bulwark.

00:23:08.000 Here's Marjorie Taylor Greene, who could not spell Russia if spotted several of the letters. 0.74

00:23:13.000 She would likely put an H in it somehow.

00:23:15.000 In any case, here's Marjorie Taylor Greene. 1.00

00:23:18.000 This is a war on Christianity.

00:23:20.000 The Ukrainian government is attacking Christians, the Ukrainian government is executing priests.

00:23:26.000 Russia is not doing that.

00:23:27.000 They're not attacking Christianity.

00:23:29.000 As a matter of fact, they seem to be protecting it.

00:23:32.000 Vladimir Putin has not said he wants to go march across Europe and take Europe.

00:23:38.000 Okay, first of all, Vladimir Putin has, in fact, talked about the Eurasian Empire that needs to arise, friendly governments all across Western Europe that would be more allied with Russia than with the United States.

00:23:49.000 As far as Russia as the great protector of Christianity, we should point out at this point that Russia is one of the most secular countries in all of the world.

00:23:56.000 Its church attendance rate is somewhere between 6% and 14%.

00:23:59.000 The Russian Orthodox Church works for the Russian government.

00:24:02.000 They have cracked down on a wide variety of religious institutions, including Protestant institutions.

00:24:07.000 And as far as their supposed social conservatism, Russia has one of the worst abortion rates on planet Earth, 45 per 1,000 women every year.

00:24:15.000 The United States is at 16.7. 0.76

00:24:17.000 We have a horrible abortion problem in the United States, and Russia is almost triple that number. 0.96

00:24:24.000 Their total fertility rate, by the way, this supposedly great restorer of Western civilization, their total fertility rate, meaning how many babies women are having, 1.4, well below replacement rates, one of the lowest in the West. 0.86

00:24:36.000 So Russia is spreading lies, but they happen to be woke right lies that cross paths, that cross streams, Ghostbusters style, with the Candace's, with the Tuckers. 0.76

00:24:44.000 Their rhetoric is precisely the rhetoric of the so called woke right. 0.51

00:24:48.000 America is soulless. 0.70

00:24:49.000 America's economy might be prosperous, but it's emptying out America of Christianity. 0.87

00:24:53.000 Again, this coming from a country that literally has the government embedding with its own form of religion to crack down on other forms of religion. 0.92

00:25:03.000 American capitalism is inferior to feudalism, right?

00:25:05.000 All of this crosses strings with the Tucker and Candace.

00:25:07.000 And I'm not saying that Tucker and Candace are working for Russia.

00:25:09.000 I'm saying they agree with them, they agree with America's enemies.

00:25:13.000 And here's Tucker saying capitalism is worse than feudalism.

00:25:17.000 I mean, feudalism is so much better than what we have now because, at least in feudalism, the leader is vested in.

00:25:23.000 The prosperity of the people he rules.

00:25:25.000 Right.

00:25:26.000 You know, if all your serfs die, you starve.

00:25:29.000 Yeah, there's a true incentive to care for those people now.

00:25:33.000 It's insane.

00:25:33.000 It's all a demoralization op.

00:25:35.000 It is all an operation to demoralize Americans, divide them from one another, make America believe that America is crap. 0.99

00:25:40.000 So here are Tucker and Alexander Dugan just saying the multipolar thing. 0.99

00:25:43.000 Again, they are on exactly the same page, and that's for a reason.

00:25:46.000 So there's the downfall of the Western unipolarity.

00:25:53.000 And the rise of the multipolarity.

00:25:58.000 And so you're watching the end of the global American empire, the unipolar world.

00:26:05.000 And so the death of the unipolar moment and of the institutions within the evangelical movement, American Protestant Christianity, are going away, but they will be replaced.

00:26:24.000 By something better and purer.

00:26:27.000 They're living in the crucial moment of this emergence of multipolarity, including Russia, China, Iran, and say it's time for a new world order where we are partners in this relationship.

00:26:43.000 I think that's the wisest possible advice and probably the only path that preserves civilization.

00:26:49.000 Well, folks, when I talk about this being a demoralization operation, that's because it is.

00:26:53.000 And if you can't spot the up, that's because you're the mark, you are the target. 0.92

00:26:57.000 What these folks wish for you to do is agree with them that America sucks and is bad, and that Russia and China and Iran ought to have more global power. 0.89

00:27:05.000 That is literally the goal. 0.96

00:27:07.000 And I know a lot of people out there are shaking their heads no, no, this isn't foreign driven.

00:27:11.000 Then you need to answer the question what exactly Tucker Carlson was doing in Russia, why he's constantly parroting Russian talking points.

00:27:17.000 You have to answer the question if you're on the left why Hassan Piker and the Chinese government aren't exactly the same page.

00:27:23.000 You have to answer the question as to why Candace Owens is, quote unquote, vacationing at a Russian government driven conference in St. Petersburg.

00:27:32.000 In the middle of a war with Ukraine where drones are being fired at St. Petersburg.

00:27:35.000 Like these are all questions that require answers.

00:27:36.000 And the answer is quite easy and understandable.

00:27:39.000 And the Russians themselves have laid it out there in this particular case.

00:27:43.000 So, again, once you see what's going on, it's hard to unsee it.

00:27:47.000 We just need people to actually, you know, open their eyes.

00:27:51.000 The idea that America supports Nazis in Ukraine or supports quote unquote genocide in Israel, by the way, that propaganda point began with the Soviets in 1967.

00:27:59.000 This idea that Zionism is a form of racism. 0.54

00:28:02.000 And anti Zionism is a form of anti colonialism.

00:28:05.000 That was a Soviet propaganda point first put out in 1967 after the Six Day War in a Soviet attempt to win over Arab states.

00:28:13.000 The idea that Iran isn't really our enemy, actually, while they shout death to America, really Iran could be our friend. 1.00

00:28:18.000 Maybe they're good. 0.99

00:28:19.000 The idea that the war on terrorism was just American imperialism and that Russia actually is our friend, that America is bad, that America is empty, that America has been taken over by child molesting elites, the so called Epstein class, who all work for the Zionists, including Donald Trump. 0.83

00:28:32.000 Kenneth Owens tweeting just a month ago The Iranian president tweets he is willing to sacrifice his own life for the people. 0.64

00:28:38.000 Donald Trump was willing to sacrifice Charlie Kirk and is willing to sacrifice every American life.

00:28:43.000 And livelihood for greater Israel.

00:28:45.000 Who is the animal again? 0.89

00:28:48.000 And all of this is a demoralization effort directed at undermining America. 0.99

00:28:54.000 I mean, there's no way to read this kind of stuff and listen to this kind of garbage, true garbage, baseless trash, without understanding the agenda. 0.98

00:29:02.000 The biggest thing, of course, is that America must retreat from the world. 0.99

00:29:04.000 That is the end goal. 0.99

00:29:05.000 It's the end goal for Russia. 0.56

00:29:06.000 It's the end goal for their ideological friends and allies. 0.57

00:29:08.000 That America must retreat from the world, that we have to give way to a multipolar world order.

00:29:13.000 That is what Russia and China desperately desire.

00:29:15.000 It's what you're hearing every day.

00:29:18.000 From these people.

00:29:19.000 That's why Candace is going to Russia.

00:29:19.000 That's the op.

00:29:21.000 It's why Tucker is friendly with Russia.

00:29:23.000 It's why.

00:29:23.000 That is the point.

00:29:25.000 Now, there is a mirror image here.

00:29:27.000 So, if Russia requires the woke right to be its ideological fellow travelers, China uses the left to fellow travel. 0.67

00:29:35.000 China uses the American left as a way to run its own demoralization op in the United States. 0.66

00:29:42.000 Right? 0.70

00:29:42.000 China is using its power in order to find allies to undermine the United States from within. 0.70

00:29:49.000 This is what Hassan Piker does.

00:29:50.000 Hassan Piker, who is now continuing his normalization campaign across American media.

00:29:57.000 Just remember that Hassan Piker is in total solidarity with the Maoist government of China, the communist regime, the repressive, tyrannical communist regime that is responsible over its history for the killing of at least 40 million human beings, probably significantly more.

00:30:14.000 He was literally in China declaring he has no patriotism for America, and somehow we're supposed to take his opinion seriously on America.

00:30:22.000 I don't have any sort of patriotism in my heart for any, yeah, for America, but just in general.

00:30:28.000 I'm not like a very, you know, I care about people.

00:30:34.000 No patriotism in his heart.

00:30:36.000 And then, of course, he was at Yale University at the Yale Political Union quoting Chairman Mao, one of the great mass murderers of history.

00:30:44.000 I am reminded, however, of some famous words spoken by a guy by the name of Mao Zedong.

00:30:58.000 Speaking with an American journalist in 1946, Mao Zedong said these words All reactionaries are paper tigers.

00:31:09.000 In appearance, the reactionaries are terrifying.

00:31:13.000 But in reality, they are not so powerful.

00:31:17.000 Speaking of US imperialism, people seem to feel that it is terrifically strong.

00:31:24.000 But it will be proved that the US reactionaries, like all reactionaries in history, do not have much strength.

00:31:31.000 In the United States, there are others who are really strong.

00:31:35.000 The American people.

00:31:38.000 Remember what Bezmanov said, right?

00:31:40.000 Take over the universities, take over the institutions, start promoting demoralization efforts.

00:31:44.000 That's the.

00:31:45.000 And so, Hassan Piker, again, people in positions of power spend their days normalizing this guy.

00:31:49.000 That's what they do now.

00:31:50.000 He's a full scale Cartier communist who has endorsed political violence, and they spend their days normalizing him.

00:31:56.000 Here is Hassan Piker suggesting just yesterday that the number one problem in America is lack of class consciousness, not poverty.

00:32:03.000 Not political dysfunction, lack of class consciousness, says the Maoist wearing jewelry.

00:32:11.000 I'm a harm reduction voter.

00:32:12.000 I'm a harm reduction believer, I guess, to a certain degree. 0.95

00:32:16.000 I recognize that class consciousness is the number one problem in this country.

00:32:20.000 We do not have class consciousness and we do not have political education.

00:32:23.000 And without class consciousness and political education, you can't have organizing on the basis of class.

00:32:30.000 And the normalization effort continues at pace. 0.97

00:32:32.000 Trevor Noah, again, another foreigner who comes here to criticize America. 1.00

00:32:38.000 Trevor Noah is talking with Piker, and Piker just starts jabbering about how he had to overcome his fear after the murder of Charlie Kirk. 0.99

00:32:45.000 Hassan Piker, a normalizer of American violence, American political violence, literally interviewed with the New York Times and talked about basically why the CEO of a health insurance company had it coming when he was murdered.

00:32:57.000 He's sitting there pretending to be a victim here. 0.97

00:32:59.000 I mean, this is pathetic stuff. 0.96

00:33:04.000 They want to create an environment of fear, an environment of tension that. 0.97

00:33:09.000 Disrupts what I want to do.

00:33:11.000 And I'm not going to give in to that.

00:33:13.000 And I mean, I even said this after Charlie Kirk got assassinated.

00:33:16.000 I was supposed to debate him two weeks after his assassination.

00:33:20.000 Obviously, it didn't happen.

00:33:22.000 But one of the things that people kept asking me is Do you have security?

00:33:27.000 Are you changing things?

00:33:28.000 And for the first week or so, I had to cancel some of my public appearances.

00:33:34.000 But shortly after that, I started going back out there, going out in public, going to protests again.

00:33:42.000 And, you know, people kept saying, like, aren't you worried?

00:33:46.000 And my answer always is the same.

00:33:48.000 It's just, I can't let fear change what I want to do.

00:33:52.000 I can't let fear influence my life in this way.

00:33:56.000 So I choose not to think that many of my friends think I'm insane.

00:33:58.000 Let's be clear.

00:33:59.000 For that reason, the reason that Hassan Piker is not worried is because he is the one who has been fomenting permission structures for violence.

00:34:06.000 People who don't like Hassan Piker are typically not.

00:34:09.000 All of this, again, whether it is people parroting Chinese propaganda or people who are actively doing the work of the Russian government.

00:34:16.000 The impact is brain rot.

00:34:18.000 All righty, coming up.

00:34:19.000 What's going on with this demoralization ideology?

00:34:21.000 We'll get into more of it.

00:34:22.000 Plus, aliens.

00:34:24.000 Did the White House just reveal the presence of aliens?

00:34:27.000 And James Tallarico is saying that Americans are divided not between right and left, but between tops and bottoms.

00:34:33.000 I have questions.

00:34:35.000 First, there are certain things that would be completely unacceptable in real life, but we have sort of accepted online.

00:34:40.000 Imagine a stranger who followed you around every day and watched every store you entered and every book you picked up and every restaurant you ate at and everything you looked at.

00:34:46.000 And then they all wrote it down in a notebook and sold that notebook to hundreds of companies.

00:34:50.000 Well, we'd call the cops, right?

00:34:51.000 But online, that's just a normal business model.

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00:36:50.000 So yesterday, a person named Colin Scott Campbell, Project Constitution on X, fired off a tweet attacking Erica Kirk, which of course has been one of Candace Owens' big things.

00:37:02.000 And if you're wondering why Candace Owens did that, obviously she did it for attention because she needs attention like a fish needs water.

00:37:08.000 But part of it is also because, again, if your goal is to tear America apart, then what do you do?

00:37:13.000 You take a unifying moment for America, like the assassination of Charlie, and you immediately begin attempting to rip it to shreds.

00:37:21.000 Well, now it has become just part of the normal political discourse to go after Erica Kirk, who committed the great sin of being married to a man who was shot in the neck and murdered.

00:37:29.000 That was her great sin.

00:37:30.000 Well, Project Constitution put out a tweet saying Erica Kirk has a new boyfriend.

00:37:37.000 She was spotted getting handsy with new Jewish boyfriend Blake Wynne.

00:37:40.000 Nephew of casino mogul Steve Wynn at exclusive Beverly Hills Hotel.

00:37:44.000 I have now confirmed through two separate sources that Erica Kirk has already moved on and fast.

00:37:48.000 Okay, well, it turns out that that is not true at all.

00:37:56.000 Kirk's legal team accused him of making false and defamatory claims.

00:38:00.000 I happen to know Blake.

00:38:02.000 Blake is engaged to someone who is not Erica Kirk. 0.99

00:38:05.000 It's all just crap. 0.97

00:38:07.000 But the attacks on Erica have been absolutely normalized. 1.00

00:38:07.000 It's all just crap. 1.00

00:38:11.000 And the rise of political violence has been normalized as well. 1.00

00:38:13.000 There is a simultaneous arrest of a 26 year old.

00:38:19.000 He was charged with a third degree felony count for making a terroristic threat involving public fear of serious bodily injury or public disruption because he said he was going to bomb a TPUSA event.

00:38:28.000 Quote Death to Erica Kirk and every single speaker there. 0.99

00:38:31.000 America will live on without these scum on this earth. 1.00

00:38:33.000 Every Christian nationalist shall perish in the bombing that will take place at every single turning point rally and event. 1.00

00:38:39.000 And when it feels like things are falling apart, the conditions for falling apart. 0.96

00:38:43.000 There's no question they're here.

00:38:44.000 The conditions for America falling apart, economic concerns, a very broken social fabric, institutions that have largely failed.

00:38:56.000 But our enemies are taking advantage of that.

00:38:59.000 And they are using people who are allies of their own ideologies in order to do so.

00:39:02.000 That is the entire demoralization effort.

00:39:04.000 First it's demoralization and then it's destabilization and then it's crisis.

00:39:08.000 That is what is happening right now.

00:39:09.000 Now, the demoralization ideology has infected the entire Democratic Party.

00:39:12.000 You don't have to go to Hassan Piker.

00:39:14.000 You can find actual Democratic nominees who continue to push.

00:39:17.000 The exact same talking points over and over and over that tear America apart.

00:39:24.000 So, over in Michigan, Democrats are about to nominate for the Senate a man named Abdul El Sayed.

00:39:31.000 We've talked about him on the program. 0.75

00:39:33.000 Abdul El Sayed is a terror supporter.

00:39:36.000 He literally would refuse to say that it was good that Ayatollah Khamenei was dead because he was afraid he would alienate his base, fellow terrorist supporters, presumably.

00:39:46.000 Abdul El Sayed is very likely to win specifically because he is so radical in this Democratic primary.

00:39:51.000 There was a debate last night between Mallory, McMorrow, Haley Stevens, and Abdul El Sayed, all of them far left.

00:39:57.000 Haley Stevens is the least far left of them, which is to say that she is slightly to the left of Mal.

00:40:04.000 In any case, Abdul El Sayed says that billionaires don't make jobs. 0.93

00:40:09.000 We need a 7% wealth tax.

00:40:10.000 This is where the Democratic Party is going as a party.

00:40:12.000 They're just steering further and further to the left.

00:40:17.000 Do we really think that excess money to billionaires makes jobs?

00:40:20.000 Because if we really think that, Then we've been trying it for a very long time, and I don't see that many more jobs.

00:40:25.000 To me, I'd like to tax them the wealth so we invest in the things that actually unlock human capital, like healthcare and good schools and functional infrastructure.

00:40:33.000 If we think that billionaires make jobs with their money, I think we are going to continue to find ourselves in an economy where it's hard to make that first $100,000 and way easier to make that next billion.

00:40:42.000 I would like to see us tax billionaires at 7% of their wealth.

00:40:45.000 Because here's the thing you tax a billionaire 7%, 8%, you know what they still are, Nolan?

00:40:51.000 Still a billionaire.

00:40:52.000 Kids, are going to be rich.

00:40:54.000 I think our kids can get to go to good schools. 1.00

00:40:56.000 Okay, this of course is idiocy. 0.88

00:40:59.000 The idea that billionaires do not make jobs neglects the fact that a huge percentage of Americans are employed because of companies that have made people billionaires. 0.98

00:41:07.000 That's how people become billionaires.

00:41:09.000 They don't steal money, they make the money by participating in voluntary transactions in the United States. 0.62

00:41:15.000 But the real thing from El Sayyid is dinging the quote unquote establishment onto the right and left.

00:41:19.000 Again, this horseshoe of people who hate the country is quite real.

00:41:23.000 When he's ripping the establishment, I know the establishment has come to mean too many things.

00:41:26.000 It's what we call a semantically overloaded term.

00:41:29.000 Establishment.

00:41:30.000 Does establishment mean kind of go along to get along Republicans who cave too often to the left?

00:41:35.000 Or does establishment mean just in the realm of the rational, people who don't agree with the Chinese government or the Russian government or the Iranian government?

00:41:44.000 Well, here's Abdul Al Sayyid doing his routine.

00:41:49.000 We're here at Mackinac Island.

00:41:50.000 Just a couple steps away, you've got the porch where corporate lobbyists are cutting deals with corporate backed politicians to figure out how to pick as much meat off the bones of Michigan as possible.

00:42:00.000 I want to tax billionaires their wealth.

00:42:00.000 You're right.

00:42:02.000 You are right.

00:42:02.000 I want to stand with unions.

00:42:04.000 And you are absolutely right that I think we should be enforcing antitrust policy that allows big corporations to collude together to raise our prices.

00:42:13.000 And the thing about it is this the conversation that needs to be had isn't just the one that we have with the 99 other senators or the folks in Congress or even a president.

00:42:20.000 It's the conversation we have with the 350 million people who elect all of us.

00:42:24.000 And I think we have an opportunity to actually find like minded opportunities with Republicans who understand that their people too are getting picked apart.

00:42:33.000 I've been to 96 cities now, and no matter where I go, people say the same thing.

00:42:36.000 It just shouldn't be this hard.

00:42:38.000 And the reason it's this hard is because you've got two establishments, one on the right, one on the left, who play the same game.

00:42:43.000 And that game has to be opposed by going right to the people and bringing our democracy back.

00:42:48.000 Okay, so again, the pitch that he is making is what if we unite with the people who have grievance against the United States on all sides?

00:42:55.000 That is, in the end, the pitch.

00:42:57.000 And this is the Democratic Party new rising tide.

00:43:01.000 Graham Plattner, who is the main Democratic Senate candidate, is very much of the same ilk. 0.99

00:43:07.000 He is a ridiculous. 0.99

00:43:09.000 Figure. 1.00

00:43:09.000 I mean, the fact that they decided to nominate Rolf the dog from the Muppets, but with a Nazi tattoo, is pretty insane. 1.00

00:43:17.000 But he spends all day ripping into Ken Griffin.

00:43:20.000 Why?

00:43:21.000 Well, because Ken Griffin donated to Susan Collins.

00:43:23.000 Now, what's hilarious about this is that Ken Griffin is not exactly a flaming right winger.

00:43:28.000 Ken Griffin might at best be called a moderate Republican, maybe.

00:43:32.000 Okay, and supporting Susan Collins is not exactly supporting a flame throwing right winger. 0.98

00:43:36.000 Susan Collins is the most moderate member of the Senate by far.

00:43:39.000 But here's Platner attacking Ken Griffin for his great sin.

00:43:44.000 This is Ken Griffin.

00:43:46.000 He made $50 billion running a hedge fund.

00:43:49.000 Susan Collins has voted to cut Ken Griffin's taxes at least four times.

00:43:55.000 Under my tax plan, Ken Griffin would pay roughly $4 billion more in taxes per year.

00:44:01.000 So it's not surprising that two hours ago we found out in a filing that Ken Griffin has given Susan Collins's super PAC $2.5 million.

00:44:11.000 He has billions of dollars at stake here.

00:44:14.000 If he succeeds in helping buy her this election, it would be one of the best investments of his life.

00:44:19.000 So, if you're sick of the attack ads, the negativity, the bull, you know who to blame one of the richest men in the world and a campaign finance system that allows men like him to buy elections.

00:44:31.000 I think it's obvious to almost everyone that this should be illegal.

00:44:35.000 But as long as establishment politicians like Susan Collins stay in office, that's not going to happen.

00:44:43.000 I'm just going to point out that if you're talking about BS artists, Graham Plattner is BS artist of all, but he didn't know it was a Nazi tattoo, you see.

00:44:49.000 Not only that, he was a victim.

00:44:51.000 He was a victim when he volunteered for the military.

00:44:54.000 So he's been claiming that it's Susan Collins' fault he was sent to Iraq, which is weird because he literally volunteered for the military and forewent college in order to do so because he wanted to go fight.

00:45:03.000 He said that in interviews.

00:45:05.000 Well, Susan Collins points that out.

00:45:09.000 Plattner says that you sent him to war, but in fact, he enlisted twice.

00:45:13.000 What is your comment on that?

00:45:15.000 Well, first of all, he not only enlisted twice after the war was started, but he also went to work for a security company, a controversial one named Blackwater, after his term in the service was over.

00:45:37.000 So I respect anyone who steps forward to serve their country.

00:45:42.000 But the fact is, that was Plattner's decision to serve.

00:45:47.000 He was not drafted.

00:45:50.000 And again, Platner's whole shtick here is that America's an evil force in the world.

00:45:53.000 And apparently that makes him a victim.

00:45:55.000 He says that, sure, he volunteered, but Susan Collins abused his willingness to serve.

00:46:02.000 Yeah, he's a victim for volunteering for a thing.

00:46:07.000 Tough guy.

00:46:07.000 Here we go.

00:46:10.000 Now, all these years later, instead of acknowledging that she was wrong, she's decided that she's going to blame those of us who, in our late teens and early 20s, signed up to serve our country.

00:46:21.000 That somehow it's our fault that she.

00:46:24.000 And establishment politicians like her wanted to abuse our willingness to serve to go send us off to fight in stupid wars that did nothing but make some people very, very rich at the expense of American taxpayer dollars. 0.98

00:46:39.000 You volunteered after the war began, dude. 1.00

00:46:44.000 It's just pathetic. 0.99

00:46:45.000 And this idea that he stands up for the troops is such nonsense. 1.00

00:46:47.000 It's just crap. 0.99

00:46:49.000 He is the John Kerry of 2026, coming back and pretending that he's pro military when, in effect, he just wants to become more famous off the back. 0.99

00:46:57.000 Of military people he slandered.

00:46:59.000 Speaking of which, there's a soldier who was slandered by Graham Platner.

00:47:03.000 That's an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today.

00:47:05.000 Quote, Mr. Platner presents himself as a savior for working-class Americans, while his background screams the opposite, and his offensive comments about fellow veterans, including me, speak poorly of his character.

00:47:16.000 The tough-talking Marine veteran struts around in a Carhartt jacket and jeans, but recent reporting relates he comes from a prestigious family where he had access to an elite private school education and a lifestyle of privilege.

00:47:27.000 Flannel shirt and all, Graham Platner is Tim Walz on steroids, an entitled brat who campaigns with socialist Bernie Sanders, a real man by the lights of the Democratic Party.

00:47:34.000 He presents himself as relatable to working class Americans. 1.00

00:47:37.000 In reality, says this soldier, he's a typical elitist who believes blue collar, hardworking, salt of the earth rural Americans are stupid and racist. 1.00

00:47:45.000 That is absolutely correct. 1.00

00:47:47.000 Graham Platner is a fake. 1.00

00:47:49.000 He is a fake. 0.97

00:47:50.000 You know, masquerading as a real man, real man.

00:47:52.000 But you know who is a real man?

00:47:54.000 Pavel, which is why you need to check out his latest episode of Be a Man with me this weekend.

00:47:58.000 Here's a sneak peek.

00:48:00.000 My name is Pavo and be a man with me!

00:48:05.000 After a 16 hour drive we made it to Corpus Christi, Texas and today we're going to spend some time with Halo Flight Team, non-profit, volunteer founded air ambulance.

00:48:19.000 In translation, they fly cool helicopters and rescue people.

00:48:23.000 Today they are going to give me some hands-on experience being a helicopter paramedic so that I can learn how a real man supports people in need.

00:48:31.000 Colton, I know nobody loves you but do you want me to call someone?

00:48:34.000 No.

00:48:35.000 Okay.

00:48:36.000 Just leave me here.

00:48:37.000 I just rather die at this point. 0.96

00:48:49.000 Speaking of Senate candidates, we do have to comment here about yet another ridiculous figure, James Tallarico. 0.95

00:48:56.000 So, James Tallarico, I do not know what he is running for. 0.65

00:48:59.000 I do not know what he is doing, what he is running for.

00:49:03.000 He is running, obviously, for Senate in Texas as a Democrat.

00:49:06.000 It is a quixotic run, and Democrats are going to waste a lot of money in that race.

00:49:12.000 A few things.

00:49:13.000 One, every clip that comes up of him from the past is worse than the last one.

00:49:19.000 I mean, here he was in 2019 saying that the American flag, Jesus, and the cross had been co opted.

00:49:25.000 I often think when reclaiming symbols, I think about the American flag.

00:49:29.000 I think the Confederate flag is a symbol of treason and terrorism.

00:49:32.000 But the American flag is such a complicated symbol for most of us.

00:49:35.000 And in many ways, like Jesus, like the cross, it's been co opted and in some ways its true meaning has been betrayed.

00:49:47.000 Okay.

00:49:48.000 This guy for Texas, and you want to talk tone deaf.

00:49:52.000 So, Tallarico, you have to think that this is on purpose, but I don't think it's actually on purpose.

00:49:56.000 I just think that he's impossibly bad at this.

00:49:58.000 James Tallarico is somehow the less masculine version of Pete Buttigieg.

00:50:03.000 It's really astonishing.

00:50:05.000 So, there have been a lot of jokes, speculation about James Tallarico's sexuality.

00:50:09.000 He's 37 and unmarried.

00:50:11.000 Now he is suddenly getting married, apparently.

00:50:14.000 In any case, that speculation was not helped yesterday when it came out that he put out a mailer that reads The biggest divide in this country is not left versus right.

00:50:25.000 It's top versus bottom.

00:50:29.000 Unfortunate wording.

00:50:31.000 Unfortunate wording.

00:50:33.000 I do not know how many Texans wish to identify, as James Tallarico would, as a bottom, but it's a move.

00:50:44.000 I don't understand that.

00:50:46.000 Does he not understand what he's saying?

00:50:48.000 Does he not understand how words work?

00:50:50.000 By the way, this is not an error.

00:50:53.000 He's been saying this stuff at rallies.

00:50:55.000 Here he was. 1.00

00:50:56.000 We launched this campaign again, talking about the tops versus the bottoms, which sounds like a terrible Thursday night at a gay bar. 0.99

00:51:06.000 The biggest divide in our country is not left versus right, it's top versus bottom. 0.99

00:51:14.000 Billionaires want us looking left and right at each other so that we're not looking up at them.

00:51:25.000 Tops versus bottoms from James Tallarico.

00:51:27.000 It's a bold campaign strategy.

00:51:29.000 A bold campaign strategy.

00:51:31.000 We'll see how it works out for him.

00:51:33.000 Okay.

00:51:34.000 At a certain point, I do think that Americans are going to get tired of all of this.

00:51:37.000 I think that President Trump was, in large part, a backlash to the sort of insanity and demoralization that has been foisted upon the country.

00:51:37.000 I do.

00:51:45.000 And then, of course, all of that has exacerbated in the wake of his victory, particularly because the right has decided to, at least a fraction, a splinter portion of the right has decided to fully come out of the woodwork as anti America.

00:51:56.000 But I do think Americans are tiring of this, particularly in areas where they've been dominated and governed by people.

00:52:02.000 Who do not like basic American principles like rule of law and equal justice before the law and private property?

00:52:09.000 So, Spencer Pratt is running a hell of a campaign for LA mayor.

00:52:13.000 Very media friendly, very good at this.

00:52:15.000 He was on Fox and Friends yesterday.

00:52:18.000 And here he was talking about the fact that while he's a registered Republican, his supporters are virtually all Democrats.

00:52:25.000 I'm a registered Republican, but my supporters are all Democrats because Los Angeles is all Democrats.

00:52:31.000 All the people financing me.

00:52:32.000 Democrats.

00:52:33.000 All the meetings I take every day are Democrats.

00:52:36.000 Democrats are very angry with what happened to Los Angeles.

00:52:39.000 They were fed a bunch of lies by Mayor Bass, who said she was going to literally solve homelessness.

00:52:45.000 She was going to do all these things she didn't do.

00:52:47.000 So they, all of the people that put her actually in office are now behind me.

00:52:51.000 So it's a nonpartisan race.

00:52:52.000 There's no letter next to either of our names because the mayor is not supposed to represent a party.

00:52:57.000 They're supposed to make sure your moms are safe, your houses don't burn down, and your tax money is going to your infrastructure, not to fund drug addicts.

00:53:05.000 So thankfully, I have Republicans that love me.

00:53:08.000 I have Democrats that love me.

00:53:09.000 I have independents that love me.

00:53:10.000 Even some socialists message me and they're like, hey, don't be so mean to us.

00:53:15.000 We like you too.

00:53:16.000 I'm like, sorry, I don't mess with socialists.

00:53:21.000 Spencer Pratt, by the way, also pointed out, and this is true.

00:53:24.000 I used to live in LA, that LA is pretty fantastic if you decide not to let the drug addicts take over all of the streets.

00:53:32.000 So that woman has had, I think, almost five years.

00:53:34.000 She's been.

00:53:36.000 These people see that I'm saying why they left.

00:53:39.000 So they're trying to get me elected so they can move back.

00:53:42.000 That's what people are missing.

00:53:43.000 These are actually former Angelenos that got forced out of this city that Mayor Bass has destroyed.

00:53:50.000 And that's why they're donating because they want me.

00:53:53.000 To be mayor so they can move back because LA is incredible when you don't let drug addicts take over the street and make moms and kids scared to go to parks or the school.

00:54:04.000 He is right about all of that.

00:54:05.000 Again, this does tie into a baseline anti Americanism. 0.99

00:54:07.000 I mean, Karen Bass is a far left person, specifically because she does not like basic American principles.

00:54:13.000 As he pointed out, it was reported in 1983.

00:54:16.000 Plaintiff Karen Bass, according to a 1973 intelligence document provided to the LA Times, traveled to Cuba with six contingents of Vencer Ramos Brigade.

00:54:24.000 The brigade trains revolutionary prone Americans in terrorist tactics and guerrilla warfare while claiming to harvest sugarcane.

00:54:31.000 Bass, who was characterized as a brigade leader, returned from Cuba to the United States, bringing back propaganda literature.

00:54:37.000 I mean, that's awkward.

00:54:41.000 Hilariously, liberals in LA admit that they agree with Pratt, but then they say they're going to vote for Karen Bass anyway because, you know, party over principle.

00:54:51.000 So then you get a guy who was on a reality show, who's on a lot of reality shows. 0.98

00:54:56.000 His profession is to be the screaming jerk on reality shows. 0.99

00:54:59.000 And his house burns down. 0.99

00:55:00.000 And even though he had no private insurance on his house and doesn't believe in climate change, he is understandably upset about his house burning down.

00:55:08.000 And since he's a moderately famous person, he gets attention.

00:55:11.000 He's on the news, he's on social media, and for the first time in his life, people are agreeing with what he has to say.

00:55:17.000 It's hard not to agree with what he has to say.

00:55:20.000 He's angry about the same problems a lot of people here are angry about.

00:55:24.000 Does he have solutions to those problems?

00:55:26.000 No.

00:55:26.000 But at least he's acknowledging that they are problems.

00:55:30.000 So then, this angry reality show star who grew up wealthy and popular and is not very wealthy or popular anymore really starts to enjoy the attention.

00:55:38.000 He starts to think, you know, I should be mayor, which is a statement that should make everyone laugh.

00:55:45.000 But not everyone is laughing.

00:55:48.000 Not everyone sees this as a joke.

00:55:51.000 Again, Jimmy Kimmel backed Zarn Mamdani, who is really, really not qualified to be mayor of Los Angeles.

00:55:59.000 So, and does Spencer Pratt have a shot if he makes it past the primaries?

00:56:01.000 He actually does.

00:56:02.000 It'll be really fascinating to watch what happens out.

00:56:04.000 In my old hometown of LA.

00:56:07.000 Meanwhile, the White House got pretty pranky yesterday.

00:56:09.000 They launched something called aliens.gov, sadly for UFO X accounts and also for Matt Walsh.

00:56:14.000 It is not disclosure.

00:56:15.000 It's not Area 51.

00:56:17.000 It is not, in fact, the mothership finally landing. 0.92

00:56:19.000 Turns out it's an immigration website with a full sci fi branding campaign. 0.80

00:56:23.000 So naturally, the internet does what the internet does. 0.86

00:56:25.000 It went totally crazy.

00:56:26.000 So I actually haven't checked out the site yet, but my producers told me I ought to.

00:56:30.000 So we're doing it now.

00:56:31.000 Let's head on over to aliens.gov.

00:56:34.000 Here it is.

00:56:34.000 Ah, it's loading with the whole typewriter thing and everything.

00:56:37.000 Like an episode of X Files, they walk among us.

00:56:40.000 For 60 years, the US government has kept a closely guarded secret.

00:56:44.000 Aliens have been walking among us, living in our neighborhoods, and interacting with us in our daily lives.

00:56:48.000 They've shopped in the same stores, attended the same classes as our children, and lived seemingly normal human existences, with one exception.

00:56:54.000 They do not belong here. 0.78

00:56:56.000 Millions arrived under the cover of darkness and embedded themselves directly into our society.

00:57:01.000 Countless presidents, congressmen, and senior officials knew exactly what was happening.

00:57:07.000 Instead of protecting American citizens, says the website, they chose to cover it up and even accelerate the invasion, until one man finally had the courage to tell the truth.

00:57:16.000 Bold, unapologetic, unafraid.

00:57:18.000 President Trump was the first to call out the real danger aliens pose to every American family, every community, and the future of our nation. 0.96

00:57:26.000 The truth is no longer out there. 0.61

00:57:28.000 It is right here, right now.

00:57:30.000 And then if you keep scrolling, then it tells you top secret, it's not a click through.

00:57:30.000 Okay.

00:57:38.000 312,900, and let's see, 3,129,613 encounters.

00:57:45.000 And it is an alien arrest map.

00:57:47.000 And of course, it is an illegal immigrant arrest map.

00:57:50.000 So, you can see here countries of origin, criminal charges, Miami, Florida.

00:57:57.000 And it says total arrests, 6,003.

00:57:59.000 And you can actually click anywhere it looks like in the United States and figure out where the arrests are happening.

00:58:05.000 It breaks down pretty granularly where a lot of these arrests are happening.

00:58:09.000 And it's kind of shocking because, of course, you would expect a gigantic circle in LA.

00:58:15.000 And instead, you see 5,199.

00:58:17.000 That is because, specifically, these are cities that are not working with the federal government.

00:58:17.000 Why is that?

00:58:21.000 What the map really shows.

00:58:22.000 Is who's working with the feds and who is not.

00:58:25.000 And so Dallas, Texas, definitely working with the feds.

00:58:29.000 Right.

00:58:29.000 Conroe, Texas, definitely working with the feds.

00:58:31.000 Oklahoma, definitely working with the feds.

00:58:34.000 And then if you expand outward this map, what you see is look at all those arrests and where they're happening.

00:58:39.000 Huge, huge arrests happening across the South, particularly in red areas.

00:58:44.000 Why is that?

00:58:44.000 That is specifically because of the red state governors who are participating with ICE.

00:58:51.000 Right.

00:58:51.000 The minute that you head on up to, Minnesota, for example, you see the circles start to get a lot smaller because the state is just not cooperating very much with ICE.

00:59:05.000 Listen, it's a funny troll. 0.91

00:59:07.000 I appreciate the troll. 0.64

00:59:10.000 I also appreciate the president sort of dunking on alien conspiracy theorists.

00:59:14.000 I think that's kind of funny.

00:59:17.000 So that is where we are now.

00:59:19.000 This is what we've come to.

00:59:21.000 The memory is strong with this one, that is for sure.

00:59:23.000 Well, it's time for the Maha segment of the week, sponsored by our friends over at Balance of Nature.

00:59:28.000 And today we are joined on the line by Catherine Illingworth.

00:59:30.000 She's the mother of a young boy named George, who's diagnosed with a rare neurodegenerative disease called CMT4C.

00:59:37.000 Doctors brushed off the concerns for a long time.

00:59:39.000 They finally got a diagnosis.

00:59:40.000 And now her family is fighting to bring a promising gene therapy from the lab to kids like George via the biotech company that she has co-founded called Kylex Bio.

00:59:48.000 By the way, you may remember her from Jordan Peterson's parenting show, where his advice transformed how Catherine and her husband, Greer, approach parenting and marriage in the middle of this struggle.

00:59:57.000 So, just recently, RFK Jr. posted about his push to unleash American biotech, cutting red tape, accelerating cures.

01:00:02.000 And as we'll discuss in a moment, that's exactly what the Illingworths need.

01:00:05.000 The science is there.

01:00:06.000 The bureaucracy and funding delays are a continuing problem.

01:00:10.000 So, the big question, as always, where do cures come from?

01:00:13.000 Is it from government or is it from private business?

01:00:15.000 So, we'll talk about their journey and hope for a cure in just one moment.

01:00:20.000 So, Catherine, welcome.

01:00:22.000 Thanks so much for taking the time.

01:00:22.000 Really appreciate it.

01:00:24.000 Of course.

01:00:25.000 Happy to be here.

01:00:27.000 So, why don't we start by talking about your son's diagnosis?

01:00:29.000 What was the journey to that diagnosis like?

01:00:31.000 Obviously, rare conditions, very difficult to diagnose.

01:00:33.000 So, how did that work?

01:00:35.000 So, I started noticing symptoms around my son's first birthday when he was learning to walk.

01:00:39.000 He pulled to stand right on schedule but couldn't walk independently.

01:00:43.000 Six months went by, eight months went by, and our pediatrician first told us, Well, you're holding him too much.

01:00:48.000 He needs to exercise more.

01:00:49.000 So we thought, Okay.

01:00:51.000 Then we got started sending us to specialists, orthopedists, his bones were perfect, physical therapists, it just looked like low muscle tone.

01:00:57.000 Finally, when he was four years old, so three years later, we finally got sent to a neurologist, and she took one look at the shape of his feet and instantly had a nurse swab his cheek for a genetic test.

01:01:08.000 Ten days later, we had a diagnosis.

01:01:12.000 And what is the diagnosis?

01:01:13.000 What is the condition and was it treatable?

01:01:16.000 What's the situation?

01:01:18.000 So, his condition is a variant of CMT, which stands for Charcot Marie Tooth Disease.

01:01:23.000 Those are the three scientists who discovered it.

01:01:25.000 And these are peripheral neuropathies.

01:01:28.000 So, in his case, it's an autosomal recessive genetic disorder.

01:01:32.000 So, he inherited a damaged copy of the same gene from both of his parents, from me and my husband.

01:01:38.000 So, that means that he does not express enough of the protein that creates the myelin sheath on the peripheral nerves.

01:01:44.000 So, that means that he will just experience progressive degeneration of those peripheral nerves every day for his entire life.

01:01:52.000 So, kids with this condition lose their ability to walk independently sometime between puberty and age 30.

01:02:01.000 I mean, I know some adults that are still walking.

01:02:03.000 I also know a nine year old with this who's fully wheelchair bound with significant loss of function in the hands.

01:02:07.000 So, it starts in the periphery of the body and sort of creeps inward over time every day for your whole life.

01:02:13.000 So, is it treatable?

01:02:15.000 Yes and no.

01:02:16.000 Scientifically, absolutely.

01:02:18.000 But as far as anything available currently on the marketplace, there was nothing.

01:02:21.000 So when we got the diagnosis, our neurologist told us take heart, there's been a ton of innovation in this space in the past decade, but the drug that you need has likely already been invented, but is stuck in what she called the valley of death, which is where promising science just doesn't ever advance to first in human trials because nobody steps up to fund the phase one trial.

01:02:42.000 So where do things stand right now?

01:02:44.000 You found a potential gene therapy.

01:02:46.000 How does that get greenlit?

01:02:47.000 What are the steps that you need in order to help provide a care for your son?

01:02:53.000 So, when we got the diagnosis, there was actually already an entire trial program designed by the nonprofit patient advocacy group called the CMT Association.

01:03:02.000 I mean, they already had had a pre IND meeting with the FDA, which is where they had proposed a notional trial design.

01:03:09.000 The FDA said, Great, if you can fund this, it looks good to us.

01:03:12.000 And then they turned back to the families, the parents of the kids with this condition, and said, All right, Your move, families.

01:03:18.000 We need $6.7 million to fund this program.

01:03:21.000 So, a handful of families got to work.

01:03:23.000 So, there was a little traction when we got our diagnosis, but I knew that this needed our full effort because that's a huge amount of money.

01:03:31.000 So, I was finishing a PhD at the time, left my PhD program to fundraise full time, and then started a TikTok campaign that went surprisingly successfully.

01:03:40.000 So, we raised enough to pay our first bill, which was manufacturing a batch of the drugs for a toxicology study.

01:03:46.000 That was about a $700,000 bill.

01:03:48.000 But I knew that if after I had sort of wrung my network dry of all of the donations that they were going to make, and your followers, Ben, actually were really supportive of that.

01:03:56.000 You retweeted our fundraiser once that created just an absolute influx of donations from your people, for which we were very grateful.

01:04:03.000 But I knew that this strategy wasn't going to take us all the way.

01:04:07.000 So I actually decided to create a parallel for profit pathway.

01:04:11.000 So we still have the nonprofit path where people can donate.

01:04:14.000 But now I actually founded Kylix Bio, our biotech company, and we got an exclusive global license to the drug and are able to also raise.

01:04:22.000 Investment capital as well.

01:04:24.000 So, creating the parallel for profit path, there were two motivations.

01:04:27.000 The first of which was faster capital, the second of which was control over what happens to the program, and then also the ability to take ownership over all of the data so that we could package it for approval and make it a desirable acquisition for larger biotech and pharma to go commercialize it after we had good data from the phase one.

01:04:49.000 So, where do things stand right now?

01:04:50.000 What is the sort of status of that project?

01:04:53.000 And has the administration been helpful in terms of trying to cut through some of the red tape?

01:04:58.000 Yeah, that's a great question.

01:04:59.000 So, right now we are manufacturing for that toxicology study.

01:05:02.000 We'll start that study in the winter, which is the they basically create an identical version for the clinical materials and then they inject them into rats, see if the rats have any adverse safety reactions.

01:05:14.000 Once we have all of that data, then we're in a position where we can actually propose, we can file the IND, the investigational new drug, which is full FDA permission to go ahead with the trial.

01:05:23.000 So, we're targeting a trial start date in about early 2028, is about when we'll make it into the clinic.

01:05:30.000 Now, as far as what is happening on the regulatory side, this has been just a transformative year in rare disease policy.

01:05:38.000 So, RFK has and his team have said everything that the rare disease drug development world has been wanting to hear for decades.

01:05:47.000 He's proposed new approval pathways, you know, flexibility around trial design, flexibility around the kind of data that's required to prove efficacy, especially because rare disease populations are so small, you know, they can't prove efficacy the way they can in a trial where they can recruit.

01:06:02.000 Hundreds or thousands of participants over many years.

01:06:05.000 So they've made a series of announcements that, you know, if they demonstrate consistency on applying those announcements and if those pathways become real, it will be transformative for rare disease.

01:06:17.000 So we'll see in the coming months and years if everything that they're announcing actually does transform the regulatory path for rare disease.

01:06:26.000 So, how can people help?

01:06:27.000 Obviously, you're still fundraising, your company is raising money as well.

01:06:31.000 Well, what's the best way people can help you help George?

01:06:34.000 So, the best way people can help is, of course, contributing to our fundraiser.

01:06:37.000 As you said, every dollar just goes directly towards paying our drug development costs.

01:06:42.000 So, it's paying the direct invoices for manufacturing, safety studies, and then eventually our trial.

01:06:47.000 So, philanthropic gifts are so important.

01:06:49.000 And I also would say, anytime you scroll past any fundraiser that has a child's name in it, it's very likely that someone else is fundraising for a clinical program as well.

01:06:59.000 And the more I just don't scroll past them, you know, when I was fundraising on TikTok, Every time I opened the app, you know, the algorithm knew that I was posting about rare disease fundraising.

01:07:09.000 So I don't see anything else when I open social media anymore.

01:07:12.000 And this problem is so much bigger than people know.

01:07:15.000 I mean, they say that rare disease impacts one in 10 Americans, but there are so many different rare diseases.

01:07:21.000 There's almost 10,000 of them we know that they're all siloed into tiny little groups that can't really help each other very efficiently.

01:07:28.000 So the more of these that are making it in front of the FDA, that are getting into the clinic, the more we'll be able to create a Consistent, cohesive plan that incentivizes investment in this space and just gets these existing treatments into children.

01:07:42.000 If you want to go and help, go check it out right now at geneforgeorge.org.

01:07:46.000 Every dollar is useful, every dollar is necessary.

01:07:49.000 And you can help kids like George at geneforgeorge.org.

01:07:53.000 Catherine, thanks so much for what you're doing.

01:07:56.000 Really appreciate it.

01:07:56.000 And thanks so much for your time.

01:07:58.000 Thanks so much, Ben.

01:07:59.000 Meanwhile, it's time to check the mail with our friends over at Pure Talk.

01:08:03.000 Professor Jacob in Tennessee apparently has a question.

01:08:06.000 So let's check it out.

01:08:09.000 Hey Ben, this is Professor Jacob from The Michael Knoll Show.

01:08:12.000 One thing that I've always respected about you is that you love Star Wars like I do.

01:08:16.000 And I say that even knowing I have to ignore your heretical claim that Empire Strikes Back is better than Revenge of the Sith.

01:08:22.000 Like, what?

01:08:23.000 Anyway, my question is Do you think the Star Wars brand is repairable?

01:08:27.000 We saw massive changes from companies like Bud Light and Target because of conservative backlash to their woke nonsense.

01:08:33.000 So, do you ever see a post George Lucas Lucas film reverting back to, like, you know, good Star Wars?

01:08:40.000 You know, they've taken loss after loss with, like, the feminist sequels, the Acolytes, Communist, Lesbian, Space Witches, etc.

01:08:46.000 You know, I'm kind of blackpilled and I don't want to be because I'm a big fan of the franchise and I'm hoping you can share some optimism.

01:08:53.000 Maybe you will, maybe you won't.

01:08:55.000 But yeah, that's my question.

01:08:56.000 Also, you need to go watch the new Mall Shadow Lord show if you haven't already, because it's actually peak and I'm very impressed by it.

01:09:02.000 Thanks.

01:09:04.000 Okay, I've also heard that the Mall show is really, really good.

01:09:08.000 Former producer Zach was a big fan of that show as well, and he actually texted me to tell me that.

01:09:12.000 I've also heard that it's going to be good for my two oldest kids.

01:09:16.000 So I'm excited about that.

01:09:18.000 Yes, it can be fixed.

01:09:19.000 It can be fixed.

01:09:21.000 The way that it can be fixed is to bring on people who actually love classic Star Wars.

01:09:25.000 What they should do is at Disneyland.

01:09:27.000 They should go right back to the original characters.

01:09:29.000 No one wants to see Kylo Ren at Disneyland.

01:09:31.000 They want to see Vader.

01:09:33.000 Nobody really wants to see people whose names I can't even remember right now.

01:09:38.000 I literally don't remember the names of the people.

01:09:40.000 Ray.

01:09:41.000 No, no one wants to see Ray.

01:09:42.000 People want to see Princess Leia and they want to see Luke and they want to see Han.

01:09:45.000 That's the reality.

01:09:47.000 And all the nostalgia is still there.

01:09:49.000 I mean, Professor Jacob is significantly younger than I am and he has nostalgia for old style Star Wars.

01:09:54.000 So what we actually need to do is go back, recast all of the original characters.

01:10:00.000 And then just pick up the story after Return of the Jedi or shift on over to a different time in the sort of Star Wars universe and restart with some cool, interesting characters.

01:10:11.000 And there have been some good attempts at it, right?

01:10:13.000 Andor is great.

01:10:14.000 Andor is excellent.

01:10:15.000 So it's not as though they don't know how to make a good Star Wars property.

01:10:19.000 They do.

01:10:20.000 They just have to either go back to what made the series great originally, which is good versus evil, actual moral stances, and also just classic adventure tropes.

01:10:32.000 Or they need to move into, if they want to do heavier and more complex, then Andor does that.

01:10:37.000 Andor is basically like a John LeCaray novel, except in space.

01:10:40.000 It's pretty cool.

01:10:41.000 All righty, head on over to puretalk.comslash Shapiro.

01:10:43.000 Again, that's puretalk.comslash Shapiro and switch on over to America's wireless company, Pure Talk.

01:10:48.000 And we thank Pure Talk for their sponsorship of the show, as always.

01:10:52.000 All righty, folks, as we continue, we are going to jump into some things I like and things I hate.

01:10:56.000 It's a Friday, and let's go into the weekend.

01:10:58.000 You know, a positive note, maybe a little bit of a negative note, but in order to see all that, you have to be a member.

01:11:03.000 If you're not a member, what are you doing already?

01:11:04.000 Like the time has come.

01:11:06.000 Gang, we've been doing this for a long time.

01:11:08.000 Just join up already and become part of the team.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - May 29, 2026

Candace Goes To Russia!

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