The Ben Shapiro Show - March 26, 2025


Democrat Launches Verbal ASSAULT on Disabled Texas Governor: “HOT WHEELS”


Episode Stats


Length

46 minutes

Words per minute

194.27226

Word count

8,943

Sentence count

614

Harmful content

Misogyny

15

sentences flagged

Hate speech

12

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The left finally feels that finally has some room to run after the supposed scandal of a bunch of Trump National Security officials being on a secret messaging group chat with a reporter from The Atlantic. Now, members of the Trump administration are saying there was no classified material on the chat.

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Folks, a lot of news breaking today.
00:00:02.000 We'll get to all of it.
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00:00:28.000 Well... The left feels that finally has some room to run after the supposed scandal of a bunch of Trump national security officials who are on a signal chat together.
00:00:37.000 And someone from National Security Advisor Mike Walz's office accidentally invited Jeffrey Goldberg, the execrable editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, into the chat.
00:00:49.000 And there, a conversation ensued all about when and how to strike the Houthis in Yemen.
00:00:54.000 And people are pretending to be extremely angry about this.
00:00:57.000 When I say people are pretending, What I mean is that there used to be a time, say, 15 years ago, when national security breaches based on revelation of classified information would have been a national scandal.
00:01:08.000 And now we have been through this many times and no one has been prosecuted.
00:01:12.000 And so the idea that anyone takes this stuff super seriously at the top level is kind of ridiculous.
00:01:17.000 Of course, I mentioned this yesterday when Hillary Clinton was let off the hook by the FBI and by James Comey.
00:01:23.000 At that point...
00:01:25.000 Basically, it was open season on screwing around with the classified information.
00:01:29.000 And so the idea that Americans are sitting around their kitchen tables today saying to themselves, oh my God, I can't believe that they invited a reporter into a signal chat and then nothing happened and the Huthies got hit with missiles. 0.76
00:01:40.000 I just don't think that that is going to motivate the American public to move away from President Trump.
00:01:45.000 And that is what the evidence, by the way, is showing right now.
00:01:48.000 Harry Enten over on CNN, he says that despite all of the Democratic attempts to paint President Trump as deeply unpopular.
00:01:53.000 The numbers are better for President Trump than literally any time in his political career.
00:01:58.000 All we talk about is how unpopular Donald Trump is.
00:02:01.000 But in reality, he's basically more popular than he was at any point in term number one and more popular than he was when he won election back in November of 2024.
00:02:11.000 What are we talking about?
00:02:12.000 His net favorable rating right now comes at minus four points.
00:02:14.000 Compare that to where he was when he won in November of 2024 when he was at minus 7 points or March of 2017 when he was at minus 10 points.
00:02:23.000 So when you compare Trump against himself, he's actually closer to the apex than he is to the bottom of the trough.
00:02:30.000 Okay, that is absolutely right, which means that unless a scandal actually goes to sort of the core of the Trump administration, and by that I mean his actual agenda, not how the agenda is carried out, but the actual agenda itself.
00:02:42.000 It's not going to harm Trump in any serious way, and President Trump knows precisely that.
00:02:46.000 So, yesterday, there was large-scale controversy over that signal chat.
00:02:50.000 Members of the Trump administration were testifying in Congress and talking about whether classified information was actually revealed.
00:02:58.000 It was maintained by Tulsi Gabbard, who is the Director of National Intelligence, that there was no classified information that was revealed.
00:03:04.000 John Ratcliffe of the CIA said the same thing.
00:03:06.000 He said that that chat did not include any real classified information.
00:03:09.000 Tulsi Gabbard suggested...
00:03:15.000 I won't speak to this because it's under review by the National Security Council.
00:03:20.000 Once that review is complete, I'm sure we'll share the results with the committee.
00:03:24.000 What is under review?
00:03:25.000 It's a very simple question.
00:03:27.000 Are you a private phone or an officially issued phone?
00:03:30.000 What could be under review?
00:03:33.000 National Security Council is reviewing all aspects of how this came to be.
00:03:37.000 How the journalist was inadvertently added to the group chat and what occurred within that chat across the board.
00:03:46.000 Now again, members of the Trump administration are saying there was no classified material on the chat.
00:03:49.000 The reason that they are saying that is because if there was classified material on the chat, that could theoretically breach actual law.
00:03:54.000 It wouldn't just be an impropriety.
00:03:56.000 It might be a legal problem.
00:03:57.000 And so they're all saying that there was no classified information on the chat.
00:04:00.000 Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, says fine.
00:04:02.000 Well, if there's no classified information on the chat, then I guess I'm just going to put everything out there.
00:04:06.000 Because there had also been a debate over whether there were actual war plans in the chat or whether it was sort of broad-ranging discussions, what was going to happen, the kinds of stuff that you could actually say to each other in text as opposed to in a skiff or in some sort of classified venue.
00:04:22.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, President Trump and two of his top intelligence officials denied Tuesday classified materials about military strikes in Yemen were shared by officials on a group chat on a non-government service while Democrats denounced the security breach as both reckless and dangerous.
00:04:34.000 I mentioned Gabbard and Ratcliffe.
00:04:36.000 said that this did not include classified information.
00:04:40.000 The information was not, in fact, classified.
00:04:44.000 Meanwhile, The Atlantic has now responded by publishing the rest of the information.
00:04:48.000 They say, fairly enough, if it's not classified, then you'll have no problem with us putting that out there.
00:04:54.000 Jeffrey Goldberg, this morning, put out a story about this.
00:04:57.000 They had emailed the White House press secretary, Caroline Levitt, and Levitt had responded, quote, as we've repeatedly stated, there was no classified information transmitted in the group chat.
00:05:04.000 However, as the CIA director at National Security Advisor have both expressed today, that does not mean we encourage the release of the conversation.
00:05:10.000 This was intended to be an internal private deliberation among high level senior staff and sensitive information was discussed.
00:05:15.000 So for those reasons, yes, we object to the release.
00:05:18.000 A CIA spokesperson asked to withhold the name of John Ratcliffe's chief of staff, which Ratcliffe had shared in the signal chain because CIA intelligence officers are traditionally not publicly identified.
00:05:28.000 But Ratcliffe had also testified earlier that the officer was not undercover and said it was completely appropriate to share their name in the signal conversation.
00:05:34.000 The Atlantic, for purposes of caution, is refusing to release the name of the officer.
00:05:40.000 Otherwise, the messages are unredacted.
00:05:42.000 So, what exactly do the texts say?
00:05:46.000 Well, at 1144 Eastern Time, this is Saturday morning, The Secretary of Defense posted in the chat, team update, weather is favorable, just confirm with CENTCOM we are a go for mission launch.
00:05:59.000 And then the Hexeth text continued, 12.15 Eastern Time, F-18's launch, first strike package, 13.45, 1.45 Eastern Time, trigger-based F-18 first strike window starts, target terrorist is at his known location, so should be on time, also strike drones launch, MQ-9s.
00:06:15.000 So Jeffrey Goldberg says, why exactly is this not classified?
00:06:19.000 This signal message shows the U.S. Secretary of Defense texted a group that included a phone number unknown to him at 1144 a.m.
00:06:25.000 This is 31 minutes before the first U.S. warplanes launched and two hours and one minute before the beginning of a period in which a primary target, the Houthi target terrorist, was expected to be killed by these American aircraft.
00:06:34.000 If that text had been received by someone hostile to American interests, the Houthis would have had time to prepare for what was meant to be a surprise attack on their strongholds.
00:06:40.000 The consequences for American pilots could have been catastrophic.
00:06:43.000 The Hegseth text continues.
00:06:45.000 210. More F-18s launch.
00:06:47.000 Second strike package.
00:06:48.000 14.15, 2.15 p.m., strike drones on target.
00:06:51.000 This is when the first bombs will definitely drop, pending earlier trigger-based targets.
00:06:55.000 3.36, F-18, second strike starts, also for sea-based tomahawks launch.
00:07:00.000 More to follow per timeline.
00:07:02.000 We are currently clean on OPSEC, that is operational security godspeed, to our warriors.
00:07:07.000 So again, the Atlantic is saying, okay, these texts are obviously supposed to be classified.
00:07:13.000 Why is this happening inside a Signal chat?
00:07:16.000 Let's separate the legal issue for a second from the actual national security issue.
00:07:22.000 Because there are two real issues here.
00:07:24.000 One is the legal situation.
00:07:26.000 If this was classified information, was it mishandled?
00:07:28.000 If so, is that a violation of criminal law?
00:07:31.000 As we've said, usually violation of criminal law requires some level of intent.
00:07:35.000 This was exactly the standard that was set up for Hillary Clinton in the emails case. 1.00
00:07:39.000 If you agree with James Comey on that, that basically you have to have intent.
00:07:43.000 To spread classified information.
00:07:45.000 It's not just negligence.
00:07:46.000 It's intent to spread classified information beyond its boundaries.
00:07:48.000 Then you're guilty of some sort of crime.
00:07:50.000 Then obviously there was no intent here.
00:07:52.000 No one meant to include Jeffrey Goldberg on purpose in the middle of the chat.
00:07:56.000 Obviously. So, on a legal standard, very difficult to say that this would be violative of law as actually reinterpreted by James Comey and the FBI and pretty much everybody else going forward from that point.
00:08:08.000 Which means 15 years ago may be a crime.
00:08:10.000 Today, not so much.
00:08:12.000 And then you reach the question of the political here.
00:08:15.000 Does it look good that this sort of thing happened, that Jeffrey Goldberg was included in this chat?
00:08:20.000 Obviously it doesn't look good.
00:08:21.000 It was messy and it was a mistake.
00:08:22.000 However, is it going to damage President Trump?
00:08:25.000 The answer here is no.
00:08:26.000 And the reason the answer here is no is because the strikes went forward.
00:08:28.000 The Houthis were in fact eviscerated.
00:08:30.000 The terrorist was in fact killed.
00:08:31.000 The strikes were in fact successful.
00:08:33.000 And the discussion that was actually had, as I mentioned yesterday, the discussion was quite fascinating because it illuminated differences inside the president's team over foreign policy and showed that both Secretary of Defense Hegseth and NSA Waltz in particular are very strong defenders of President Trump's peace through strength agenda.
00:08:50.000 This is what Mike Waltz was saying yesterday on national television on Fox News.
00:08:54.000 He said, listen, we're knocking the crap out of the terrorists, which is the central issue here.
00:08:58.000 This journalist, Mr. President, wants the world talking about more hoaxes.
00:09:03.000 And this kind of nonsense, rather than the freedom that you're enabling, and a key part of our sovereignty is open sea lanes and knocking the crap out of terrorists, which is exactly what your team and Pete Hegseth, a good friend and fellow veteran, is leading the charge on.
00:09:19.000 President Trump, for his part, did the right thing.
00:09:21.000 He defended Waltz.
00:09:22.000 And I say it's the right thing here because the idea that Waltz or Hegseth or anyone is going to get fired over this in the wake of the reality about how national security information has been treated.
00:09:33.000 Is ridiculous.
00:09:34.000 It's particularly ridiculous in the aftermath of the Afghanistan withdrawal for which no one was fired.
00:09:39.000 So, a slap on the wrist is appropriate. 1.00
00:09:41.000 A firing is not.
00:09:42.000 Trump's national security team is really, really good.
00:09:45.000 I mean, that's actually the message that you get from the internals of the deliberations.
00:09:48.000 Again, put aside the actual negligence of including Jeffrey Goldberg in the chat.
00:09:51.000 The actual internal deliberations are fascinating, interesting, and high level.
00:09:54.000 Here's President Trump defending walls.
00:09:57.000 I don't think he should apologize.
00:10:00.000 I think he's doing his best.
00:10:02.000 It's equipment and technology that's not perfect, and probably he won't be using it again, at least not in the very near future.
00:10:11.000 Well, President Trump is defending Mike Waltz, as he should.
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00:12:21.000 Okay, now, Democrats, of course, are jumping all over this and they are pretending that this is a deep breach of national security.
00:12:27.000 Again, it is very difficult for Democrats to have a leg to stand on here.
00:12:30.000 Considering their past treatment of classified information ranging from Hillary Clinton to Joe Biden.
00:12:35.000 The bottom line is neither party takes this stuff particularly seriously at this point.
00:12:38.000 Should both parties take it more seriously?
00:12:40.000 Absolutely. Sure.
00:12:42.000 Is it something that anyone takes seriously at this point?
00:12:45.000 Especially when it's kind of no harm, no foul?
00:12:47.000 The answer is going to be no going forward here.
00:12:50.000 Democrats who are trying to seize on this as sort of their moment in time to make hay, they're making a very large tactical mistake, I think.
00:12:59.000 Again, most Americans don't care about this.
00:13:01.000 Most Americans don't really understand why this is such a major issue other than somebody got messy in the signal chat.
00:13:09.000 Senator Mark Warner of Virginia ripped into John Ratcliffe, head of the CIA, and Tulsi Gabbard, DNI, over the carelessness and incompetence and all the rest of this.
00:13:18.000 I can just say this.
00:13:19.000 If this was the case of a military officer, Or an intelligence officer, and they had this kind of behavior, they would be fired.
00:13:35.000 I think this is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information, that this is not a one-off or a first-time error.
00:13:53.000 Yeah, again, this sort of outsized outrage is kind of rich coming from these people.
00:13:58.000 John Ossoff, the senator from Georgia, who is not long for the Senate, by the way, went after John Ratcliffe and said, oh, this is totally so unprofessional, just terrible.
00:14:05.000 You guys had literally a person who was dead as president of the United States for several years and you covered it up.
00:14:11.000 You guys presided over the worst American humiliation since the Vietnam War with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, where you turned over an entire country of 38 million people to the world's worst barbarians while getting American service members killed. 0.95
00:14:23.000 People are dropping out of the wheel wells of airplanes.
00:14:25.000 This is where you're drawing the line of being embarrassed?
00:14:28.000 That wasn't a huge mistake.
00:14:30.000 They characterized it as a mistake.
00:14:33.000 This is utterly unprofessional.
00:14:36.000 There's been no apology.
00:14:38.000 There has been no recognition of the gravity of this error.
00:14:43.000 Okay, I'm sorry.
00:14:44.000 From these people, I'm just not willing to hear it.
00:14:46.000 I'm not.
00:14:47.000 I'm not.
00:14:48.000 It's ridiculous.
00:14:49.000 Susan Rice, who is National Security Advisor under Barack Obama, said this is just terrible.
00:14:54.000 Just absolutely, absolutely awful.
00:14:57.000 Ambassador Rice, putting your National Security Advisor hat back on your reaction to this report.
00:15:05.000 It's stunning.
00:15:06.000 It's likely the biggest National Security debacle that any professional can remember.
00:15:13.000 Okay, so that's the biggest national security debacle anyone can remember.
00:15:17.000 I don't know.
00:15:17.000 Again, I remember when you were a part of the Biden administration, like a top domestic policy advisor to the Biden administration that presided over the collapse of Afghanistan, among other things.
00:15:26.000 So, yeah, I can remember much worse debacles than this.
00:15:29.000 Now, is this great?
00:15:30.000 Absolutely not.
00:15:31.000 Is this something that you would recommend?
00:15:33.000 No. Is it on the order of a complete destruction of Western presence in Afghanistan and turning over the country to the Taliban?
00:15:43.000 Orsay doing nothing when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine twice, once.
00:15:48.000 Again, Susan Rice was there for all of this.
00:15:50.000 She was there for the invasion of Ukraine in 2014 by the Russians, and she did nothing.
00:15:54.000 And then she was there for the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 0.63
00:15:58.000 And again, totally ineffective.
00:16:00.000 So I'm noticing a lot of problems with the idea that this is where you draw the line.
00:16:06.000 It's such a procedural approach to government sin.
00:16:10.000 Well, the procedures were not done.
00:16:12.000 Again, I agree.
00:16:13.000 The procedures were not done.
00:16:15.000 That's really bad.
00:16:17.000 Slap on the wrist is appropriate. 1.00
00:16:18.000 Public humiliations for all.
00:16:20.000 Does that amount to a fireable offense in this era?
00:16:24.000 The answer, of course, is no.
00:16:26.000 That, of course, is really silly, and Trump is not going to fire, and he shouldn't fire these people.
00:16:30.000 The reality is that many of the people who are gunning for members of the administration, it's interesting which members of the administration they are particularly gunning for, right?
00:16:37.000 They're gunning for Waltz because Waltz included Goldberg in the chat in the first place.
00:16:42.000 But also because Walt happens to be a hawkish backer of Trump's peace through strength.
00:16:46.000 They're gunning for Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, who, again, is the hawkish backer of peace through strength.
00:16:50.000 I mean, again, if you read the chat, what's fascinating about the chat, as I mentioned yesterday, is that the most responsible and intelligent commentators on foreign policy in the chat are Walt and Hegseth.
00:17:00.000 It's not particularly close.
00:17:01.000 They are the two most informed, most reasoned people in the chat about what should be done about the Houthis.
00:17:07.000 For example, I do not think it is a coincidence that many of both the isolationists on the right And the Obama foreign policy pseudo-realists on the left are gunning for Hegseth and Waltz.
00:17:18.000 I don't think that is merely about the handling of classified information, because there are a lot of people on that chat.
00:17:22.000 So not everybody was on that chat, and no one else is being gunned for, which is rather curious, shall we say.
00:17:28.000 In the end, it is left to Jasmine Crockett, the new hot leader of the Democrat Party, and she's sort of the fresh-faced AOC. 0.66
00:17:36.000 AOC's still out there.
00:17:37.000 She's now a veteran.
00:17:39.000 But Jasmine Crockett is trying to steal her thunder. 1.00
00:17:41.000 This is the congresswoman from Texas, the incredibly voluble congresswoman from Texas, who was left to sum up the real problem that happened in the Signal chat.
00:17:51.000 And then y'all want to come at us and act like people of color are the problem or that women are the problem? 0.93
00:17:56.000 Like, baby, you probably need a good black woman in the room who can check you and tell you that, first of all, you shouldn't be doing this on Signal or anything else. 1.00
00:18:09.000 Yeah, that was the problem.
00:18:10.000 There's no black woman in the room. 0.76
00:18:11.000 That would have solved everything.
00:18:13.000 Thank you, Jasmine.
00:18:14.000 That wasn't even the dumbest thing she said yesterday.
00:18:16.000 So meanwhile, you wonder why President Trump continues to ride high?
00:18:19.000 Like, there can be botchery at Doge.
00:18:20.000 There can be mistakes made in signal chats and all the rest of it.
00:18:24.000 However, the Democrats are completely lost.
00:18:26.000 They're in the wilderness right now because their leaders are people like Representative Jasmine Crockett.
00:18:30.000 They're attempting to show that they are, in fact, the resistance.
00:18:33.000 And they think that the way that you show you're the resistance is by cursing a lot and by...
00:18:38.000 Saying deeply insulting, terrible things.
00:18:40.000 So Jasmine Crockett, this is hilarious.
00:18:43.000 She was at the Human Rights Campaign, which is all about equality of rights.
00:18:47.000 It's about LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign. 1.00
00:18:49.000 And it's supposedly about marginalized people.
00:18:52.000 And she proceeds to drop this insane line. 1.00
00:18:56.000 Because we in these hot Texas streets, honey.
00:19:02.000 Y'all know we got Governor High Wheels down there.
00:19:05.000 Come on now.
00:19:06.000 And the only thing hot about him is that he is a hot mess, honey.
00:19:13.000 So that is some very inspiring talk there.
00:19:17.000 They're in the hot-ass streets with the Hot Wheels governor because he's a hot-ass mess, according to Jasmine Crockett.
00:19:23.000 Now, there are a few problems with this.
00:19:24.000 Number one, Jasmine Crockett grew up in a rather privileged precinct of St. Louis, and so she's cosplaying this sort of attitude. 0.95
00:19:30.000 But beyond that, when she refers to Governor Greg Abbott as Hot Wheels, she is literally insulting a person who...
00:19:42.000 She's insulting a paraplegic for being in a wheelchair by calling him Hot Wheels.
00:19:48.000 And she is being laughed at and cheered by the members of the Human Rights Campaign, which is all about, supposedly, the inclusion of marginalized people.
00:19:57.000 I don't think that you're about the inclusion of marginalized people, guys.
00:20:00.000 I actually don't.
00:20:00.000 I have doubts that that is your actual political agenda.
00:20:04.000 And Jasmine Crockett then tried to walk this back. 1.00
00:20:07.000 Because it turns out that it's actually not a great thing to insult the disabled and to characterize them as, quote-unquote, hot wheels.
00:20:14.000 So she tried to walk this back.
00:20:15.000 She tried to pretend she wasn't talking about the fact that the Governor Abbott of Texas is a paraplegic.
00:20:21.000 She wrote on X, quote, I wasn't thinking about the governor's condition.
00:20:25.000 I was thinking about the planes, trains, and automobiles he used to transfer migrants into communities led by black mayors, deliberately stoking tension and fear among the most vulnerable. 0.86
00:20:32.000 Literally, the next line I said was that he was a hot-ass mess, referencing his terrible policies.
00:20:37.000 At no point did I mention or allude to his condition.
00:20:38.000 So I'm even more appalled that the very people who unequivocally support Trump, a man known for racially insensitive nicknames and mocking those with disabilities, are now outraged.
00:20:45.000 Now, do you remember at that time that Trump supposedly made fun of a journalist who had a condition?
00:20:51.000 And it actually was not him making fun of the journalist who had the condition.
00:20:54.000 It's the same weird hand motions he does whenever he's talking about someone he thinks is stupid and weak.
00:20:58.000 And then they played it as though this particular journalist was being mocked by Trump and became a national news story.
00:21:03.000 She literally called a paraplegic hot wheels. 1.00
00:21:06.000 And now she's claiming the reason she called Greg Abbott Hot Wheels is not because he is in a wheelchair.
00:21:10.000 It is because he is sending migrants on airplanes to various cities led by black mayors. 0.97
00:21:21.000 I don't think that that's what you meant.
00:21:23.000 And the reason I don't think that that's what she meant is because it turns out that in 2021, she liked a post referencing Governor Abbott as Hot Wheels, which was before the migrant transfers.
00:21:35.000 Oopsie daisy.
00:21:36.000 That was uncovered by the Washington Free Beacon, which, of course, is tremendous reporting.
00:21:39.000 So this, of course, has generated angst and antagonism in the House of Representatives, which is basically descended.
00:21:45.000 Much of the House of Representatives is staffed by good, responsible people who actually care about their constituents.
00:21:50.000 And then there is, in fact, a contingent of the House of Representatives that is basically Jerry Springer running for various gubernatorial seats.
00:21:56.000 That is what the House of Representatives has become in large part.
00:22:02.000 It is filled with some of the Dullest knives in the drawer, for sure.
00:22:06.000 That includes Representative Ayanna Pressley, who is now complaining about the Trump administration for, wait for it, being too white. 0.99
00:22:14.000 Look, I don't want us to lose sight of what is actually happening here.
00:22:20.000 Let's not revise what's happening.
00:22:23.000 The Trump cabinet is on track to be one of the whitest cabinets in modern history.
00:22:29.000 And when the government is given unchecked authority...
00:22:32.000 Civil rights are often the first to be sacrificed. 0.53
00:22:36.000 Oh boy.
00:22:37.000 This is what you got.
00:22:38.000 You got the cabinet's too white and a Hot Wheels governor.
00:22:42.000 These are your leaders, Democrats.
00:22:44.000 You chose your fighters.
00:22:45.000 Well, Democrats have chosen a bunch of idiot leaders and people who actually reflect some of the worst in humanity and back that.
00:22:52.000 Well, that worst of humanity still exists and threatens people all over the globe.
00:22:57.000 After more than a year of war in Israel, the need for security essentials and support for first responders remains absolutely critical.
00:23:02.000 Even during periods of ceasefire, Israel must maintain constant vigilance and preparedness for potential threats that could emerge from any direction as the nation continues to face hostility from surrounding adversaries.
00:23:10.000 Throughout this challenging time, the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has stood firmly alongside the people of Israel, providing essential security resources that save lives.
00:23:18.000 We remain committed.
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00:23:20.000 Your gift today will directly contribute to life-saving security measures including bomb shelters to protect families during rocket attacks, armored security vehicles, ambulances that provide critical medical care, advanced firefighting equipment for emergency response teams, protective gear like flak jackets and bulletproof vests for those on the front lines, and numerous other crucial resources.
00:23:37.000 By making a generous donation today, you're helping ensure that Israel's communities remain safe and secure during these uncertain times, allowing families to live with greater peace of mind in the days ahead.
00:23:46.000 Make your life-saving gift to bless Israel and her people by visiting benforthefellowship.org.
00:23:50.000 That's benforthefellowship.org.
00:23:53.000 Thank you and God bless benforthefellowship.org.
00:23:56.000 Also, let's talk about something that's on every parent's mind, your kid's nutrition.
00:23:59.000 You know how most kids' vitamins are basically candy with a vitamin label?
00:24:02.000 Loaded with sugar, they've got artificial ingredients.
00:24:04.000 This is where Haya comes in. 0.94
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00:24:50.000 To claim this deal, you have to go to HayaHealth.com slash Shapiro.
00:24:53.000 This deal is not available on their regular website.
00:24:55.000 Go to H-I-Y-A-H-E-A-L-T-H.com slash Shapiro.
00:25:00.000 Get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults.
00:25:03.000 And I think that many, many people in the country.
00:25:06.000 There's a whole Democratic campaign right now.
00:25:08.000 Do you regret your vote for Trump?
00:25:09.000 And the answer, so far, seems to be absolutely not for the vast majority of people who voted for Trump.
00:25:15.000 And the reason for that is because the specter of Democrat rule is just that scary.
00:25:19.000 Why? Well, because one of the ousted members of the squad, Ayanna Pressley, as I've mentioned before, is the Ringo Starr of the squad. 1.00
00:25:25.000 They're far-left radical progressives in Congress, led by AOC.
00:25:29.000 Well, one of the ousted members of the squad, Cori Bush, Representative Cori Bush, she admitted...
00:25:33.000 What the Democrats were going to do next if they had gained power.
00:25:36.000 And this is terrifying.
00:25:39.000 Remember, the investment kept going down, down, down.
00:25:42.000 And we were like, no, because we need this investment.
00:25:45.000 We need, like you said, the money.
00:25:47.000 That was more money for lead pipes than what we had seen.
00:25:50.000 I think it was $3.9 trillion.
00:25:53.000 Did it start at $3.9 and go down, or did it?
00:25:56.000 We were at, I thought we were at $10, and then it went down to $6, and then down to $3, and then it went down to $1.7, I believe.
00:26:03.000 They were going to shoot for $10 trillion.
00:26:06.000 $10 trillion in that climate deal.
00:26:09.000 If they had unified control of government, they would do it again.
00:26:12.000 No wonder people are still resonating to President Trump's message.
00:26:15.000 Speaking of which, President Trump signed a couple of consequential executive orders yesterday.
00:26:19.000 He signed an executive order, according to Politico, seeking to change how elections are administered across the country, especially rules related to citizenship and mail-in voting.
00:26:28.000 The Trump order asserts that federal law requires all states to reject ballots not received by Election Day, directing the Justice Department to take all necessary action to enforce that requirement.
00:26:37.000 That, of course, makes perfect sense because it's very difficult to determine.
00:26:41.000 You can try to do it based on postmark, theoretically.
00:26:44.000 But how exactly are you going to determine quickly and easily how an election was conducted if people are still having their votes counted five days after the election?
00:26:54.000 The trust and veracity of the American electoral system, is deeply undermined by this idea that you can receive a ballot three days after an election and still count it.
00:27:04.000 In Florida, we know the election results literally day of, like within an hour, because they pre-count all of the mail-in ballots and then they add on day of voting and then they're done, which is the way it should be done across the country.
00:27:17.000 President Trump's order asserts that federal law requires states to reject ballots not received by election day, directing the Justice Department to take all necessary action.
00:27:24.000 Across the country, states have wide latitude to administer elections differently.
00:27:28.000 None allow votes to be counted if they are cast after Election Day.
00:27:30.000 Some accept absentee ballots after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by Election Day.
00:27:34.000 Many others require ballots to be in possession of election officials by the time the polls close.
00:27:38.000 For example, in Florida, a ballot must be received by 7 p.m. on Election Day.
00:27:42.000 In California, a ballot must be postmarked on Election Day but can arrive up to seven days later.
00:27:48.000 Again, which is incredibly messy.
00:27:50.000 The executive order also requires the Election Assistance Commission, an independent agency, to add proof of citizenship to the national voter registration form.
00:27:57.000 States are required to accept that national form under federal law.
00:28:00.000 They can still create their own voter registration forms.
00:28:02.000 But if you're going to use the federal voter registration form, you should have to show that you're a citizen.
00:28:06.000 That does not seem particularly controversial.
00:28:09.000 And this bizarre idea that has been put forward by so many people that impoverished citizens can't show proof of their citizenship is insane and ridiculous.
00:28:16.000 You have to show proof of your citizenship.
00:28:19.000 Every time you drive a car, what do you think a driver's license is?
00:28:23.000 There are lots of poor people in America who are able to drive or able to buy alcohol using an ID.
00:28:29.000 It actually is not all that difficult.
00:28:32.000 This is an 80-20 issue and Democrats find themselves on the wrong side of it.
00:28:35.000 President Trump also signed an executive order directing the FBI to immediately declassify files concerning the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
00:28:45.000 As Fox News reports.
00:28:47.000 The agency probe launched in 2016, was seeking information on the Trump campaign.
00:28:52.000 It was deeply corrupt, the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
00:28:54.000 It was rooted in a false report that was basically crafted out of whole cloth by Fusion GPS, a firm that was hired via Perkins Coy by Hillary Clinton, in order to whip the Steele dossier into existence.
00:29:10.000 The Crossfire Hurricane investigation also included impropriety, including the...
00:29:15.000 Improper surveillance of Carter Page, a member of sort of the Trump foreign policy team, although a very low-level one.
00:29:22.000 President Trump is declassifying all those files, saying, you might want to go through this stuff if you're talking about government corruption.
00:29:28.000 This memorandum requires the immediate declassification of all FBI files relating to the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
00:29:35.000 This was obviously one of the instances of the weaponization of law enforcement, powers of prosecution against you and others.
00:29:42.000 We believe that it's long past time for the American people to have a full and complete understanding of what exactly is in those files.
00:29:49.000 Which gives the media the right to go in and go and check it.
00:29:54.000 You probably won't bother because you're not going to like what you see.
00:29:57.000 But this was total weaponization.
00:29:59.000 It's a disgrace.
00:30:00.000 It should never happen in this country.
00:30:02.000 But now you'll be able to see for yourselves all declassified.
00:30:06.000 Okay, so, as he says, you probably won't like what you're going to see.
00:30:10.000 And that's right.
00:30:11.000 Then the media are not going to look into these files because the files show exactly what was going on during the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which, again, is one of the most deeply corrupt investigations in modern American history.
00:30:21.000 No one was fired for that one, by the way.
00:30:23.000 I'll point out as well.
00:30:25.000 Meanwhile... The Republicans on the Hill are moving steadily toward their one big beautiful bill.
00:30:30.000 According to Politico, congressional GOP leaders are coalescing behind President Trump's demand that their massive party line bill include a debt limit increase.
00:30:37.000 Senate Republicans are seeing if they have the votes to make it happen.
00:30:40.000 Those plans were cemented during a White House meeting on Tuesday with the senior Republicans in both chambers, top tax writers, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
00:30:47.000 Senate Majority Leader John Thune said his conference still needed to make a final decision.
00:30:52.000 In order to get that strategy going, President Trump will need to force several key Senate GOP hardliners to get behind it.
00:30:57.000 Again, the goal here would be to be able to increase the spending limit under President Trump, which is the thing that he wants.
00:31:05.000 It is likely that this will be achieved by President Trump.
00:31:10.000 In an acknowledgment that the gamut of linking a debt ceiling increase to a filibuster-skirting reconciliation measure might not work, Thun has been careful to leave the door open to striking a deal with Democrats to avoid default in the coming months on the debt limit.
00:31:21.000 But many of Thune's members are clamoring to put the debt ceiling hike in the reconciliation bill in order to get all of it done at once because they don't want to actually make concessions to Democrats.
00:31:29.000 So the argument that President Trump is making and that Thune and Johnson presumably are going to be making is you can either negotiate a debt limit hike with Democrats, in which case you have to make concessions to Democrats, or you can stick the debt limit hike in this one big, beautiful bill and then pass it along with everything else.
00:31:44.000 And you don't have to make any deals with Democrats.
00:31:45.000 Thune said, I think that's clearly a preferable outcome.
00:31:48.000 Obviously, the House has it in their version, so we have to determine whether or not the Senate can get on board with that idea.
00:31:54.000 The Senate's blueprint right now does not have that in there.
00:31:57.000 Thune stopped short Tuesday of promising Republicans finally had a plan for addressing the debt limit.
00:32:01.000 He believed there was a consensus that was forming.
00:32:05.000 Some GOP lawmakers say they may have to strip out the debt limit measure from the massive bill to extend tax cuts if the U.S. approaches the debt limit too early, before the lawmakers can come to an agreement.
00:32:16.000 But again, I think that...
00:32:17.000 The senators come around.
00:32:18.000 I think it is highly likely that Republicans get their one big, beautiful bill done, and that's a big victory for President Trump.
00:32:24.000 It's absolutely necessary because, again, the sort of trade war that's being unleashed on the world is a pressure in the other direction.
00:32:30.000 Trade wars tend to lead to economic stagnation and inflation.
00:32:33.000 The one big, beautiful bill leads to economic certainty.
00:32:36.000 It leads to deregulation in certain areas.
00:32:39.000 It leads to lower taxes.
00:32:41.000 One of these things makes business happy.
00:32:43.000 One of these things makes business more unhappy.
00:32:45.000 And so if you're going to do the tariff thing, then it just makes what's happening on the other end, on the legislative end, that much more important.
00:32:52.000 As the Wall Street Journal reports, barriers to open trade are rising around the world at a pace unseen in decades, a cascade of protectionism that harks back to the isolationist fervor that swept the globe in the 1930s and worsened the Great Depression.
00:33:02.000 It isn't just President Trump's new tariffs.
00:33:05.000 Even before Trump retook the White House, many countries were increasing trade barriers, often against China.
00:33:09.000 Now those efforts are proliferating as countries braced for a new wave of goods redirected across the globe by the U.S.'s rising tariff shield.
00:33:15.000 The EU said this month it plans to toughen measures to protect its own steel and aluminum producers from imports diverted from the United States by Trump's 25% tariffs on those two metals.
00:33:25.000 Economists suggest that the world could be heading toward the largest, broadest surge in protectionist activity since the U.S. Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which was a large contributing factor in the Great Depression.
00:33:35.000 Now, economists don't think that we're headed toward a Great Depression or anything remotely like that, but the economic slowdown could be significant, which is just one reason why if you're going to do one thing, you certainly have to do.
00:33:45.000 The other.
00:33:46.000 Meanwhile, that is something that the administration is pursuing in terms of deregulation and cuts.
00:33:52.000 Doge continues to be popular with the American people as a general rule.
00:33:55.000 They may not like Elon Musk.
00:33:56.000 They may not like the way that this is being pursued.
00:33:59.000 But the basic idea of going through the government with a red pen and just line iteming out all of the bad spending ideas, that's something the American people certainly like.
00:34:09.000 And the Trump administration is coming, I think, to a better version of this, which is a more Do I think it's a great idea to lay off half of the employees when a system doesn't work?
00:34:39.000 I think the answer is probably no.
00:34:42.000 Is that going to happen?
00:34:42.000 Probably not.
00:34:43.000 And this exactly is the point.
00:34:45.000 President Trump, the rest of the administration, they're not big on the bad headlines.
00:34:49.000 And so cutting deeply into necessary areas of government or third rails of government in the case of Social Security, that's not something that President Trump is likely to do.
00:34:57.000 So what you're likely to end up with, with this administration, is something like Trump 1, which has a lot of brash and bold policies where the rough edges are sanded off by the process, which is sort of best of all available worlds in reality.
00:35:10.000 Alrighty, meanwhile, President Trump's agenda at the college level is continuing to bear fruit.
00:35:14.000 So there's been a lot of talk about the supposed crackdown on free speech at Columbia University.
00:35:19.000 That is not what is happening.
00:35:20.000 There is a thing, and it's called the Civil Rights Act. 0.90
00:35:22.000 It suggests that you are not allowed to receive federal taxpayer dollars and then engage in discrimination against a wide variety of groups.
00:35:28.000 One of those groups does include Jews.
00:35:30.000 Discrimination against Jews, such as, for example, allowing the setup of gigantic riotous mobs in the middle of campus shutting down buildings.
00:35:39.000 Preventing Jews from reaching class. 1.00
00:35:41.000 That does amount to discrimination, and everybody would know that if it were a bunch of white students who were stopping black students from going to class, for example.
00:35:47.000 And so the Trump administration cracked down on Colombia, and they said, listen, all your federal taxpayer dollars are going to go away unless you actually abide by federal law.
00:35:54.000 And now Colombia is caving.
00:35:56.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, at the request of the Trump administration, Columbia University interim president Katrina Armstrong publicly reiterated her commitment to implementing changes the school agreed to in negotiations with the federal government.
00:36:06.000 Armstrong released a statement emphasizing her support for the changes after holding weekend meetings with anxious faculty about the deal the school made in government talks over federal funding.
00:36:14.000 Some faculty said they were concerned Armstrong was playing down the changes and presenting mixed messages.
00:36:18.000 She put out a statement saying, That's because the Trump administration forced an agreement.
00:36:36.000 That it restricted masks, empowered campus police, and appointed a senior vice provost with broad authority to oversee the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies Department, which has been a longtime cancer at the very center of Columbia University.
00:36:48.000 It used to be run by people like Edward Said, who is a wildly anti-Western figure, indoctrinating students day in and day out with the idea that the West was colonialist and evil while its enemies were actually just poor victims and all of their own terrorist activities were the fault of the West.
00:37:04.000 The Trump administration earlier this month canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts over campus anti-Semitism concerns.
00:37:11.000 But, again, you could substitute any sort of discrimination concerns and it would meet the standard required under federal law.
00:37:19.000 On Friday, Columbia largely agreed to the changes with Armstrong saying, quote, we need to continue to work to restore the public's faith of the fundamental value of higher education for the nation and the long-standing partnership between groundbreaking universities like Columbia and the federal government.
00:37:32.000 The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights has lawyers visiting the campus this week, and they're going to investigate this more.
00:37:39.000 By the way, how bad were things on Columbia University's campus?
00:37:44.000 There's a lawsuit that was filed Monday in Manhattan federal court by six relatives of captives who are being held captive by Hamas or were held captive by Hamas in Gaza.
00:37:54.000 This lawsuit was filed in federal court against Students for Justice in Palestine.
00:37:59.000 Why? Well, because according to this lawsuit, SJP, which again is one of these radical campus groups, had prior knowledge of the October 7th, 2023 terror attacks.
00:38:09.000 So it wasn't just that SJP puts out anti-American pro-Hamas propaganda, which they certainly do. 0.79
00:38:15.000 It is also that SJP, according to this lawsuit, was in full active coordination with Hamas.
00:38:22.000 According to the suit, quote, three minutes before Hamas.
00:38:25.000 This is insane.
00:38:27.000 Three minutes before Hamas began its attack on October 7th, Colombia SJP posted on Instagram, quote, we are back, in an announcement about its first meeting of the semester and urged viewers to, quote, stay tuned.
00:38:40.000 According to the filing, the group's account had been dormant for months before the October 6th posting, which was made a couple of weeks after the start of Colombia's fall 2023 semester.
00:38:49.000 The plaintiffs accused the group of being part of Hamas'American propaganda arm and a terrorist U.S.-based in-house public relations firm, which has changed form several times to evade criminal and civil liability.
00:38:59.000 According to the suit, Columbia SJP was the leading organizer of pro-Hamas disruptions, encampments, and riots on Columbia's campus, including virulent anti-Semitic protests that harassed and physically intimidated Jewish students and faculty, glorified Hamas, engaged in dangerous premeditated unlawful acts, and significantly impaired Columbia University's ability to provide educational services to the U.S.
00:39:17.000 Again, that is an amazing statement.
00:39:23.000 SJP was suspended by the Ivy League University only in November of 2023, but it simply morphed and its members joined other groups.
00:39:32.000 The lawsuit highlights a toolkit disseminated by National Students for Justice in Palestine October 8th that called on the group's partners and allies to organize a day of resistance and tell its members to sign what was in effect a loyalty pledge to Hamas.
00:39:45.000 By the way, the family's suit names several defendants, including Mahmoud Khalil of Columbia University, apartheid divest.
00:39:52.000 That's the person who's being deported by the Trump administration right now.
00:39:57.000 The suit says those organizations have been only more aggressive and more militant in their efforts to, in coordination with Hamas and National Students for Justice in Palestine, distribute Hamas-created and affiliated propaganda.
00:40:08.000 So yeah, that is more than Mahmoud Khalil just saying things, as it turns out.
00:40:13.000 Meanwhile, I want to bring you some updates on our campaign for the pardon of Derek Chauvin.
00:40:17.000 So yesterday I appeared on Stephen A. Smith's program, which was a lot of fun.
00:40:20.000 He's a nice guy.
00:40:21.000 We had a good conversation.
00:40:22.000 He's definitely an interesting person, Stephen A. Smith.
00:40:25.000 He's usually quite voluble.
00:40:27.000 I will say that this was a pretty toned down and conciliatory conversation.
00:40:31.000 There are a few particularly interesting points in the conversation.
00:40:34.000 One of them is when I asked Stephen A. Smith, what could change his mind in the Derek Chauvin case?
00:40:39.000 What new evidence could change his mind?
00:40:41.000 And he basically said the thing out loud that everybody who defends the Derek Chauvin conviction says, which is...
00:40:47.000 Literally no information could ever change my mind ever under any circumstances because I know what I need to know and I really don't care about all the rest of the information.
00:40:54.000 Let me ask you this.
00:40:55.000 I mean, if you looked at, you said before that you didn't look at the autopsy report, you're not taking a lot of time looking at the evidence or the autopsy.
00:41:01.000 What would it take for you to change your mind on the case?
00:41:04.000 Or is there nothing that could change your mind on the case because you saw the tape, for example?
00:41:08.000 It wouldn't take much, and this is why I said this, because normally I would look at the autopsy reports or whatever.
00:41:13.000 I saw people bringing up his arrest record.
00:41:15.000 I saw people bringing up fentanyl in the system.
00:41:18.000 I saw all of these things.
00:41:19.000 And all I could come to, Ben, fair or unfair, was that none of that matters if he wasn't on the ground with a knee on the back of his neck for nine-plus minutes.
00:41:30.000 Because I'm looking at...
00:41:32.000 A trained police officer who should know better.
00:41:34.000 I looked at the experts who were saying, with their trade, there was no reason.
00:41:39.000 And you saw it.
00:41:40.000 I'm sure you saw this.
00:41:41.000 And not to say that you would embrace it with the level of sincerity that others may, because I know the level of skepticism that you look at when you see the news outlets.
00:41:48.000 And by the way, I don't blame you.
00:41:49.000 I'm with you on that, okay?
00:41:51.000 But I would say to you...
00:41:53.000 Listening to experts talk about how police officers are trained and pointed to the fact that Derek Chauvin had no business being in that position and putting George Floyd in that position, particularly once he was handcuffed and contained.
00:42:06.000 To me, that, along with the ultimate outcome, is all the evidence I need.
00:42:13.000 And that's where we might differ.
00:42:15.000 Okay, so there's one problem, as I pointed out to Stephen A. Smith there, which is that actually it was a Minneapolis Police Department trained procedure that Derek Chauvin was using that, again, the autopsy report shows no actual damage to George Floyd's trachea, to his neck muscles.
00:42:32.000 There's no bruising.
00:42:33.000 He was claiming that he couldn't breathe before he was even put on the ground.
00:42:36.000 He was obviously in some sort of cardiac event.
00:42:38.000 We talked about this all on yesterday's show in episode 3 of the case for Derek Chauvin.
00:42:48.000 But the real key there from Stephen A. Smith is that...
00:42:51.000 It doesn't matter to him what the autopsy shows.
00:42:53.000 It doesn't matter what the extraneous evidence shows.
00:42:55.000 It doesn't matter even if he knew this was a trained procedure.
00:42:58.000 All that matters really is the tape.
00:43:01.000 And that is not a way that we should really pursue questions of criminal justice.
00:43:06.000 We also got into the topic of sort of identity and politics as it relates to criminal justice cases.
00:43:13.000 He says, well, you know, what do you say to people who are who have a lived experience with police?
00:43:18.000 And the point that I was making to him about public policy was, well, we don't make public policy based on lived experience.
00:43:23.000 We make public policy based on data.
00:43:25.000 What about the argument that when we talk about black folks, you can point to data all you want to, and we get that part, but the...
00:43:33.000 Real experiences that we endure from time to time is not something that you can necessarily calculate.
00:43:39.000 How serious do you take those assertions coming from a community, whether it's your own, mine, or anybody else's?
00:43:46.000 Obviously, it's true that we can never fully get into one another's shoes, right?
00:43:49.000 I mean, that's just the reality of the world, and that's true beyond race.
00:43:52.000 That's just true for individuals.
00:43:53.000 You, Stephen, or me as an individual, you can't live in my shoes.
00:43:55.000 I can't live in...
00:43:56.000 We're different people.
00:43:57.000 We live different lives.
00:43:58.000 But when it comes to making public policy...
00:44:01.000 Then the only sort of gauge that you can have really is the data.
00:44:05.000 Because anecdotal evidence, you can't make public policy for millions of people based on anecdotal evidence because you can't legislate people's feelings.
00:44:11.000 I mean, this is sort of one of my things.
00:44:12.000 When it comes to trying to craft law, for example, making law based on the personal feelings of people's quote-unquote lived experiences is a bad way to make law that is going to have to be generally applicable.
00:44:25.000 Because I may have particular feelings about a particular criminal case based on my own personal experiences.
00:44:30.000 But if we do that, then what you end up with is a really high level of tribalism in which if your racial identity prevails or my racial identity prevails, really bad things can come from that.
00:44:41.000 The law is designed to treat people as equal individuals underneath it.
00:44:46.000 And so the relevance of lived experience, that may play a part in us being able to understand one another as individuals if we're having conversation over dinner or if we're giving advice to each other about our kids.
00:44:56.000 But when it comes to actually making public policy, it's a different thing.
00:44:59.000 Yeah, you got it, man.
00:45:00.000 You make a valid point about policy.
00:45:01.000 When you talk about policy, you can't just go by personal experience.
00:45:04.000 It's got to be the numbers.
00:45:05.000 It's got to be the data.
00:45:06.000 I totally get that.
00:45:07.000 Good for Stephen A. Smith for at least acknowledging that much.
00:45:10.000 Again, it was a really interesting and, I think, calm and reasoned conversation with Stephen A. He invited me on his show.
00:45:16.000 We invited him on our show.
00:45:18.000 I'd love to have him on and discuss everything from politics to his basketball tapes.
00:45:21.000 I think I may agree more with that, his basketball tapes, than his politics.
00:45:25.000 Actually, particularly on Bronny James.
00:45:26.000 But we'll have to get into it.
00:45:28.000 Already coming up, the President of the United States is moving towards something like a ceasefire in Ukraine.
00:45:34.000 The United States is making concessions to the Russians along that basis.
00:45:37.000 Plus, we're going to check into the mailbag first.
00:45:40.000 You have to go check out the membership at Daily Wire Plus because that's how you get the rest of the show.
00:45:45.000 We have tons of stuff that is there, tons of stuff that is coming.
00:45:48.000 Everything from Matt Walsh's amazing movies to our all-access library.
00:45:51.000 You get to hang out with me live to Morning Wire to upcoming...
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