The Ben Shapiro Show - Democrats To SHUT DOWN The Government?

00:00:00.000 Well, folks, as always, there's a lot happening in the news.

00:00:02.000 The Democrats are now threatening a government shutdown.

00:00:05.000 No one really knows why.

00:00:06.000 Pete Buttigieg apparently wants to run for president.

00:00:08.000 A lot happening.

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00:00:36.000 Okay, so, you thought Democrats couldn't possibly get any dumber.

00:00:39.000 And yet somehow they have managed to achieve this signal feat.

00:00:43.000 The reason I say this is because right now, President Trump is having some trouble when it comes to the economy, obviously.

00:00:49.000 The Dow Jones Industrial Average is off significantly since he took office.

00:00:53.000 There's a lot of concern about the possibility of recession in the near future in the United States, despite some pretty strong economic fundamentals.

00:01:00.000 And in the polling data, President Trump is actually moving the wrong way on the economy.

00:01:05.000 According to a brand new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, the question is, how have Donald Trump's policies affected U.S. economic conditions?

00:01:12.000 51% say worsened conditions.

00:01:15.000 28% say improved conditions.

00:01:18.000 21% said have no effect.

00:01:21.000 So, that is not a great number for President Trump.

00:01:25.000 51% again say worsened conditions.

00:01:27.000 21% say have no effect.

00:01:29.000 Well, if things start to get worse, That 21% is going to cave into the 51%. 1.00

00:01:33.000 You're going to end up with three quarters of Americans who are going to blame President Trump if the economy goes south in all likelihood.

00:01:39.000 Only 44% of Americans currently approve of how President Trump is handling the economy, inflation.

00:01:46.000 In terms of helping the middle class, 43% approve.

00:01:48.000 Only 39% approve of President Trump's tariffs.

00:01:52.000 And in terms of helping the middle class, only 43% approve.

00:01:57.000 Okay, so these are bad numbers for President Trump in this polling.

00:02:00.000 That if the economy picks up or continues to truck along, that President Trump can't heal all of that.

00:02:05.000 It just means that because of all the volatility that's been injected into the economy, because of all the talk about tariffs, which, again, I don't really see the purpose of, I want President Trump to succeed in effectuating his agenda.

00:02:16.000 And if that agenda gets thwarted by an economic downturn, that would be a very large-scale mistake.

00:02:24.000 Well, that's an opening for Democrats, a clear and obvious opening for Democrats.

00:02:28.000 And yet Democrats...

00:02:29.000 are not only not going to take advantage of the opening, they are going to shoot themselves directly in the head.

00:02:34.000 Which, I gotta say, I, as a Republican, approve.

00:02:37.000 I'm just not sure what you are doing.

00:02:39.000 The reason I say this is because Republicans were able to, through the leadership of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and no thanks to Thomas Massey, pass a continuing resolution that will fund the government until about September.

00:02:49.000 That gives the Republicans plenty of time to negotiate a budget deal amongst themselves, come up with the one big beautiful bill that they need to pass, and get that done without the government.

00:02:58.000 Simply falling apart.

00:03:00.000 Right?

00:03:01.000 So that's why the government shutdown was averted by the Republicans in the House.

00:03:04.000 So now it gets passed on to the Senate.

00:03:05.000 And in the Senate, obviously, the Republicans also have a majority.

00:03:08.000 In fact, they have a 53-seat majority.

00:03:10.000 Rand Paul has said he's going to vote against the continuing resolution.

00:03:13.000 But there's still 52 votes left.

00:03:14.000 Even if it got down to 50 votes, J.D. Vance would then break the tie in favor of the continuing resolution.

00:03:21.000 So if you're a Democrat at this point, you're looking at the state of the economy, which is somewhat dicey.

00:03:27.000 It appears to be, again, volatile.

00:03:29.000 You can't predict the future there.

00:03:31.000 And that is really the only tool you have to attack President Trump.

00:03:35.000 And what you don't want to do is get into the business of owning the economy if you're the Democrats.

00:03:40.000 Why would you want to own that?

00:03:43.000 If Republicans had followed down on the job and been unable to pass a continuing resolution, you could have blamed Republicans for the shutdown.

00:03:49.000 This was the Democratic plan in the House.

00:03:50.000 It's the reason why, for example, Hakeem Jeffries instructed Democrats...

00:03:53.000 Not to vote in favor of the so-called Clean CR, the Clean Continuing Resolution, which is just a maintenance of funding at current levels all the way through September.

00:04:01.000 So Democrats, except for one, did not participate in the CR. But now the Democrats seem to want to actively kill the CR and push America into a government shutdown that they clearly will own.

00:04:13.000 That's the part that makes no sense politically speaking.

00:04:15.000 According to the Wall Street Journal...

00:04:17.000 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer threw a wrench into a Republican plan to avert a government shutdown this weekend, saying there was not enough Democratic support to advance the measure funding federal agencies through September 30th.

00:04:27.000 Now, you're saying to yourself, hold up, don't Republicans actually have a majority in the Senate?

00:04:31.000 Yes, they do.

00:04:32.000 But in order to overcome a filibuster, in order to invoke a cloture, you need 60 votes.

00:04:37.000 Now, Democrats could simply not filibuster.

00:04:39.000 They could just say, fine, listen, you want to vote for the CR, vote for the CR. Instead, Democrats are now actively considering Which, again, makes no sense.

00:04:50.000 Most Americans are just saying, leave us alone.

00:04:52.000 That's effectively what the CR does.

00:04:54.000 It just kind of leaves things alone.

00:04:56.000 If Democrats want to throw a wrench into that for no apparent reason, then they will own any government shutdown.

00:05:02.000 And then if the economy turns south, then I guess they own it.

00:05:06.000 They own a big chunk of that.

00:05:07.000 Because a government shutdown is going to throw all sorts of scares into the market.

00:05:12.000 Schumer said that Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to move the resolution.

00:05:16.000 He indicated that his party was prepared to block it, and then he blamed Republicans, saying they chose a partisan path.

00:05:21.000 Well, I mean, it seems kind of partisan to use your 47 votes in the United States Senate to hold up 53 votes in the United States Senate simply because, what, your base is mad at you for not standing up to President Trump's agenda enough?

00:05:36.000 So Schumer's alternative, believe it or not, is, in fact, a clean CR but for a month.

00:05:41.000 So instead of this clean continuing resolution that funds the government through September, instead he's proposing a 30-day clean continuing resolution and then we can redo all of this in a month.

00:05:49.000 He, of course, is hoping the Republican coalition will fall apart in the meantime and that the economy will fall apart in the meantime during that month.

00:05:57.000 If they got what they wanted, there'd be a month of continuing resolution.

00:06:00.000 He's hoping the stock market crashes in that interim month and then he won't be blamed no matter what happens.

00:06:06.000 But what he's doing right now makes no political sense.

00:06:09.000 He is injecting Democrats.

00:06:10.000 Into the middle of the most dicey proposition for the Trump administration.

00:06:15.000 It's bizarre.

00:06:16.000 It really is strange.

00:06:17.000 As an analyst of politics, I don't understand any of the logic here.

00:06:20.000 The first rule of politics is do not get in the way of your opponent making a mistake.

00:06:26.000 Do not interrupt your enemy when your enemy is making a mistake.

00:06:30.000 If the idea from the Democrats is the Republicans own every aspect of the economy, you then have to let the Republicans own the economy if you inject yourself into that process.

00:06:39.000 In order to shut down the government, you now own what comes next.

00:06:42.000 By the way, Republicans know this, which is why House Speaker Mike Johnson says the ball is in Schumer's court.

00:06:47.000 On Fox News, he said that the New York Democrat court has a big decision to make.

00:06:51.000 Is he going to cast a vote to keep the government open, or is he going to be blamed for shutting it down?

00:06:55.000 Republicans cast Schumer's remarks, according to the Wall Street Journal, as risky posturing.

00:06:59.000 A Senate GOP aide said there was only one legislative vehicle available to the Senate that will keep the government open beyond Friday night, the House passed bill, and Democrats know that.

00:07:08.000 Schumer's comments came apparently after Senate Democrats huddled for nearly two hours Wednesday behind closed doors.

00:07:13.000 Apparently, many Democrats emerged grim-faced and laconic.

00:07:17.000 Most did not want to talk.

00:07:18.000 Some, including Senators Mark Warner and Mark Kelly, both senators from somewhat purple states, Warner's from Virginia, Kelly, of course, is from Arizona, said they wanted to vote on a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government open for 30 days.

00:07:31.000 Kelly said such a move would enable Congress to work on passing this year's appropriations bills on a bipartisan basis, right?

00:07:36.000 They're hoping that, again, only funding the CR for a short term would force the Republicans to basically negotiate with Democrats.

00:07:44.000 But that is not what's going to happen here.

00:07:47.000 The GOP is fully willing to allow Democrats to own a government shutdown because Schumer is going to have to own it.

00:07:51.000 If you invoke a filibuster in order to own a government shutdown, you are a moron.

00:07:55.000 And what Chuck Schumer is doing here is really stupid and really quite bad.

00:08:00.000 Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado said, quote, if we shut the government down in a funny way, you're giving the president even more power.

00:08:05.000 So whether he keeps this part of government open, closes that part, how that money gets spent, he has absolute control, you know, like a king, which is true.

00:08:11.000 During a government shutdown, the executive branch then gets to decide who is an essential worker.

00:08:16.000 So they're playing right into Trump's hands.

00:08:18.000 It's an almost best case scenario for President Trump.

00:08:20.000 Let's say that Chuck Schumer does the filibuster and the government shutdown occurs because Chuck Schumer did the filibuster.

00:08:26.000 Well, now President Trump has the unique capacity to determine Who exactly is an essential worker under federal law?

00:08:33.000 At which point, let Elon Musk in there with a chainsaw, man.

00:08:37.000 Senator John Fetterman, apparently the last non-moron in the Democratic caucus, said he would back the GOP bill.

00:08:43.000 He said, I refuse to burn the village down to claim to save it.

00:08:46.000 He said, imagine what was happening if you shut the government down.

00:08:48.000 For how long?

00:08:49.000 Who knows?

00:08:51.000 That is correct.

00:08:52.000 It is amazing that the Democrat, who apparently has brain damage from a stroke, is the only rational one.

00:08:58.000 Inside the Democratic Party, at this point, they have completely lost their minds.

00:09:02.000 And this is partially due to a complete lack of leadership in the Democratic Party.

00:09:06.000 The Barack Obama-led Democratic Party is dead.

00:09:09.000 Donald Trump killed it off.

00:09:10.000 And there's no one there to replace it.

00:09:11.000 And so now it's a battle between the Wokies, led by AOC and Jasmine Crockett, some of the progressives, led by Bernie Sanders and maybe Pramila Jayapal, who cross paths with the Wokies all the time. 0.99

00:09:23.000 And then...

00:09:24.000 These pseudo-moderates, and I say pseudo-moderates because you have Gavin Newsom out wandering the landscape having on Michael Savage in an attempt to pretend that he is in fact some sort of moderate himself.

00:09:33.000 One of the pseudo-moderates is Pete Buttigieg.

00:09:35.000 So this is kind of a hilarious story.

00:09:37.000 Pete Buttigieg, you'll recall Pete Buttigieg.

00:09:38.000 He was the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

00:09:41.000 A place with a population of approximately 150,000.

00:09:44.000 And then he was elevated into a presidential candidate because he likes dudes.

00:09:47.000 That's really his only qualification.

00:09:49.000 He ran for president.

00:09:51.000 On the basis of not being able to fill potholes in South Bend, Indiana.

00:09:54.000 And then he lost.

00:09:56.000 He overperformed, but he lost to Joe Biden in 2020. And then he was elevated to Secretary of Transportation, where he presided over parts falling off of Boeing planes and trains derailing in East Palestine, Ohio.

00:10:10.000 He was elevated to that position, not because he knew anything about transportation, but because in his own words, he liked trains.

00:10:16.000 He had a romance for trains.

00:10:18.000 He liked choo-choo trains.

00:10:21.000 Who was so useless that he left on paternity leave. 0.60

00:10:24.000 Remember, paternity leave is usually because you are attempting to help your physically recovering wife.

00:10:30.000 As recognized, Pete Buttigieg is married to a man, which means that his non-physically ailing husband he stayed home with for two months and no one even noticed because he was so useless.

00:10:42.000 Now he wants to run not for Senate, but for president.

00:10:45.000 Now you say to yourself, wait a second, how did he run for Senate?

00:10:47.000 Isn't he from Indiana?

00:10:48.000 You just said he was the mayor of South Bend.

00:10:50.000 Ah, yes.

00:10:50.000 But you forget, he moved with husband Chasen Buttigieg to Michigan in 2022, and he has spent approximately 22 seconds in Michigan.

00:10:59.000 Therefore, he was considering a Michigan Senate run.

00:11:01.000 Well, he announced today that he's not going to be running for Senate in Michigan, which, I mean, hell, I'm not running for Senate from New York.

00:11:09.000 I have the same connections to New York that Pete Buttigieg has to Michigan.

00:11:13.000 So he's not going to run for Michigan's open Senate seat.

00:11:16.000 Instead, he is going to...

00:11:18.000 Run a campaign for president in 2028. Unbelievable.

00:11:23.000 Unbelievable.

00:11:24.000 Of course.

00:11:24.000 Of course he is.

00:11:25.000 Why the hell not?

00:11:27.000 Why not?

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00:13:33.000 David Axelrod said, quote, Pete was an A-list recruit who would have been a formidable candidate for the Senate had he chosen to run, but had he won in 26, would almost certainly have taken him out of the conversation for 28. This certainly keeps that option open.

00:13:45.000 Uh-huh.

00:13:46.000 Sure.

00:13:47.000 Yeah.

00:13:48.000 Okay, fine.

00:13:49.000 Pete Buttigieg, that's the one you choose?

00:13:52.000 Or maybe, or maybe, Politico is pushing Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago, who did such a spectacular job that Chicago is now one of the most sought-after places to live in America.

00:14:03.000 That'd also be the guy who was chief of staff to Barack Obama, famous for leaving dead fish.

00:14:09.000 I'm not kidding.

00:14:10.000 It was when he was in Congress.

00:14:10.000 He'd leave dead fish, apparently, near his congressional colleagues to threaten them to vote in particular ways, like the Godfather.

00:14:17.000 So now, Rahm Emanuel is...

00:14:20.000 Traipsing across the political landscape seeking to gain support for a presidential run.

00:14:25.000 According to Politico, named the political podcast, Emmanuel has likely been on it or will be shortly.

00:14:30.000 He immediately snagged a CNN contract in a regular Washington Post column.

00:14:33.000 No small accomplishment for a formal official at a moment of retrenchment for news organizations.

00:14:38.000 He's also hitting the lecture circuit.

00:14:39.000 Just as striking is to talk to anybody in high-level democratic politics who knows Emmanuel and hear how matter-of-fact they are about the inevitability of his candidacy.

00:14:48.000 Apparently, he's already road testing the first outlines of a stump speech, or at least an issue, that he can make his own.

00:14:54.000 He said, I'm done with the discussion of locker rooms.

00:14:56.000 I'm done with the discussion of bathrooms.

00:14:57.000 We better start having a conversation about the classroom.

00:15:01.000 He said, we can lead a discussion and force a topic onto the agenda of this country that's worthy of having a debate about.

00:15:08.000 So, okay, good luck.

00:15:10.000 Good luck to Rahm Emanuel.

00:15:11.000 So, you're traipsing out, again, a guy who...

00:15:14.000 Was last relevant in like 2010, maybe, Rahm Emanuel.

00:15:20.000 And a guy who's mostly famous for being an absolutely horrible secretary of transportation, but is also gay. 0.78

00:15:27.000 You guys, you're doing great.

00:15:29.000 You're absolutely doing great.

00:15:30.000 Well, meanwhile, President Trump is having fun.

00:15:31.000 Yesterday, he had in the awful president of Ireland, and he proceeded to have some fun with this.

00:15:38.000 Here he was, ripping Rosie O'Donnell for moving to Ireland.

00:15:42.000 Rosie O'Donnell announced that she was moving.

00:15:44.000 To Ireland, which, you know, good luck to Ireland.

00:15:46.000 It was hard for me to think that Ireland could get any worse in its politics, but Rosie O'Donnell will certainly help. 0.54

00:15:52.000 Ireland is known for very happy, fun-loving people.

00:15:55.000 Great attitude, many in this room right now that I've met.

00:15:59.000 Why in the world would you let Rosie O'Donnell move to Ireland? 1.00

00:16:03.000 I think she's going to lower your happiness level. 0.99

00:16:04.000 That's true.

00:16:05.000 Thank you.

00:16:06.000 I like that question.

00:16:08.000 Do you know you have Rosie O'Donnell?

00:16:10.000 Do you know who she is?

00:16:11.000 Do you know who she is?

00:16:14.000 You're better off not knowing.

00:16:18.000 Okay, so first of all, I think President Trump, this is like one of his longest standing feuds is Rosie O'Donnell.

00:16:24.000 You remember Rosie O'Donnell from like the 2015 debates in which Megyn Kelly asked him about women bleeding from there wherever.

00:16:31.000 And he said, I was only talking about Rosie O'Donnell.

00:16:33.000 So yeah, this is a very long standing feud that he has with Rosie O'Donnell.

00:16:36.000 And I think it's fair to say that Trump won this feud.

00:16:38.000 He's the president twice and Rosie O'Donnell is moving to Ireland.

00:16:41.000 Meanwhile, Trump was also raving about the tattoos of Conor McGregor.

00:16:44.000 So listen, President Trump is living his best life.

00:16:47.000 Well, I do happen to like your fighter.

00:16:49.000 He's got the best tattoos I've ever seen.

00:16:52.000 I don't know if I'm a big fan.

00:16:53.000 Is it Conor McGregor?

00:16:56.000 Conor.

00:16:58.000 Conor's great, right?

00:17:00.000 Talking about Conor.

00:17:01.000 But you have a lot of great Irish fighters, actually.

00:17:07.000 Okay, so, again, he was having a good time over at the White House.

00:17:10.000 However, he then got into commentary on tariffs.

00:17:13.000 I was at the gym yesterday watching President Trump.

00:17:16.000 Talk about tariffs.

00:17:18.000 And I watched in real time as the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped as he talked.

00:17:23.000 When he talks about tariffs and he discusses trade barriers, the markets start to freak out because, at the very least, it means more volatility.

00:17:30.000 We don't know what's happening next.

00:17:33.000 I'm not saying this because I wish to criticize President Trump.

00:17:36.000 I'm saying this because I wish President Trump to succeed.

00:17:39.000 If you look at the chart of President Trump's first term, what you see is the Dow Jones Industrial Average on a straight Arithmetic increase line up.

00:17:47.000 Up and to the right.

00:17:48.000 And so far, in his term, the line has been down.

00:17:53.000 And that is not exactly what you're looking for.

00:17:56.000 Well, President Trump is upping the ante by now saying that he wants to increase tariffs on the EU. Now again, if the goal of all of this is to get the EU to lower its own tariffs against the United States, I'm for it.

00:18:07.000 If the goal is to leverage some other deliverable from other countries, I'm for it.

00:18:11.000 If the goal is to protect national security, I'm for it.

00:18:14.000 If this is just because tariffs are fun and games, or because President Trump has been talked into the idea that trade wars are both good and easy to win, that is not good economic policy.

00:18:22.000 It just isn't.

00:18:25.000 Right now, inflation is cooling, actually.

00:18:27.000 That is good news.

00:18:27.000 It should be good news for the Trump administration.

00:18:29.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, inflation actually cooled last month.

00:18:33.000 Consumer prices were up 2.8% in February from a year earlier.

00:18:37.000 Now, again, remember, that is still an increase in inflation.

00:18:39.000 You're looking generally for a 2% year-on-year increase?

00:18:42.000 It is a decrease in the rate of inflation, but it is actually an increase in the actual inflation of the cost.

00:18:51.000 There was a January gain of 3%, so it's moving in sort of the right direction.

00:18:56.000 Prices excluding food and energy rose 3.1%.

00:18:59.000 That was the lowest year-over-year reading since 2021, and it was lower than 3.2% expected by economists.

00:19:06.000 But all of the sort of uncertainty that is being injected into the process by President Trump, He's not helping matters.

00:19:13.000 And tax cuts, deregulation, consistent policy, these are the things that make for a strong, healthy, and growing economy.

00:19:22.000 And yet this morning, President Trump threatened a 200% tariff on alcohol from the EU. He said the EU, this is on Truth Social, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the world, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% tariff on whiskey.

00:19:36.000 That, of course, was retaliatory tariff put in place by the Europeans after the United States put tariffs on other European products.

00:19:42.000 If this tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200 percent tariff on all wines, champagnes and alcoholic products coming out of France and other EU represented countries.

00:19:50.000 This will be great for the wine and champagne businesses in the United States.

00:19:54.000 I mean, it's not great for the wine and champagne consumers in the United States.

00:19:58.000 But he is correct that when you institute taxes on American competitors, it tends to be good for the businesses in those particular areas.

00:20:05.000 Here's President Trump ripping on the EU yesterday.

00:20:07.000 The EU was set up in order to take advantage of the United States.

00:20:12.000 Including Ireland?

00:20:13.000 Is Ireland taking advantage of the US? Of course they are.

00:20:17.000 I have great respect for Ireland and what they did.

00:20:20.000 And they should have done just what they did.

00:20:23.000 But the United States shouldn't have let it happen.

00:20:25.000 We had stupid leaders.

00:20:26.000 We had leaders that didn't have a clue.

00:20:28.000 Or let's say they weren't business people, but they didn't have a clue what was happening.

00:20:31.000 And all of a sudden, Ireland has our pharmaceutical companies and this beautiful island of five million people.

00:20:42.000 It's got the entire U.S. pharmaceutical industry.

00:20:49.000 Okay, well, I mean, one of the reasons that Ireland has been drawing American businesses is because they lowered the corporate tax rate, which is something we should do in the United States.

00:20:57.000 Ireland never signed on to the idiotic Joe Biden worldwide global corporate tax rate that he was proposing of 15%.

00:21:04.000 Ireland just went right under it at like 10% and drove a bunch of businesses to reshore.

00:21:07.000 That's something the United States could do.

00:21:09.000 If we are the best place in the world to do business, businesses will come here.

00:21:11.000 It is that simple.

00:21:12.000 That is why the United States historically has been such an unbelievable powerhouse in terms of foreign investment, in terms of economic growth.

00:21:19.000 It's why the dollar is the world's reserve currency and all the rest.

00:21:23.000 President Trump, when he said that the EU was set up to take advantage of the United States, that's not true.

00:21:28.000 The European economic community was actually mostly set up in opposition to the communist bloc in Eastern Europe.

00:21:34.000 It was meant to create a robust trading and free trade infrastructure inside Western Europe to combat the influence of communists from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

00:21:44.000 And the real question in all of this is, what is President Trump intending to do?

00:21:49.000 If President Trump wants to explain what the goal is and how long it's going to take and how we get there, that would be a welcome development for everyone who invests.

00:21:57.000 And again, I'm a person who invests.

00:21:58.000 I have a lot of money in the stock market, in real estate, in various different investment vehicles.

00:22:03.000 And as an investor, I'm looking for certainty.

00:22:06.000 I'm looking for reliability.

00:22:07.000 I am not unique in this respect.

00:22:10.000 The markets are speaking as a sort of aggregated knowledge of pretty much everybody who has money in the markets.

00:22:17.000 Now, President Trump is relying on some advisors like Peter Navarro.

00:22:20.000 Peter Navarro has always been a sort of trade hawk who has sought higher tariffs as a form of actual positive policy.

00:22:27.000 So this is where we're going.

00:22:29.000 We're going to a world just like Reagan went from his inauguration to the middle of his term, where it was the Reagan mural.

00:22:38.000 This is going to be the Trump golden age of prosperity miracle.

00:22:42.000 And it's much bigger than Ronald Reagan ever dreamed of or imagined.

00:22:46.000 And it's going to be that much better.

00:22:49.000 Salute to Ronald Reagan, but really salute to the commander in chief right now.

00:22:54.000 Again, his mouth to God's ears.

00:22:56.000 That's what we're all rooting for.

00:22:57.000 But the tariff policy is, in fact, a wrench in the plans of the Trump administration.

00:23:03.000 Caroline Lovett, whose job it is to defend the president's policies, obviously, from the White House podium, she says that President Trump is going to continue to use tariffs.

00:23:10.000 The president is effectively utilizing tariffs, not just as a negotiating tactic, but actually implementing them, as we saw with the 25% tariff on steel and aluminum, to bolster those industries here in the United States, to advance our national security interests, to create good-paying jobs here at home.

00:23:30.000 And you've actually seen the steel and aluminum industries applaud those tariffs as being good for their manufacturing, for their revenue, and for their workers, most importantly.

00:23:40.000 And so the president will continue to effectively utilize tariffs while, again, driving down the cost of living in this country.

00:23:48.000 So, again, the kind of notion that we actually need to protect as a sort of matter of national security, the domestic American steel industry, there are problems with that basic idea.

00:23:59.000 So I thought this would be an excellent time to ask our sponsors over at Perplexity, quote, what percentage of total U.S. steel production goes to U.S. military consumption?

00:24:08.000 In other words...

00:24:09.000 The US military consumes steel.

00:24:10.000 Of the total US steel production, how much of that steel is consumed by the US military?

00:24:15.000 Because if we're kind of even, you would imagine, okay, fine, we need to subsidize US steel production.

00:24:19.000 We need to protect US steel production.

00:24:20.000 If, let's say, that 70% of all US steel was consumed by the military, we'd be like, yeah, we really need to protect that.

00:24:27.000 As it turns out, that is not the number.

00:24:28.000 Quote, according to recent data.

00:24:30.000 The percentage of total U.S. steel production that goes to U.S. military consumption is relatively small.

00:24:35.000 The American Iron and Steel Institute reported that in 2020, military applications represented approximately 3% of annual domestic steel production.

00:24:43.000 However, some sources suggest that the actual figure may be even lower, with the Pentagon historically purchasing significantly less than 1% of the U.S. steel industry's output.

00:24:52.000 So, yeah, in other words, the idea that you need massive steel tariffs to protect...

00:24:57.000 The American steel industries that our military has access to the materials it needs, that doesn't line up with the factual reality here.

00:25:04.000 The predictable effect of all of this is that the EU is going to unleash new tariffs.

00:25:08.000 Canada is unleashing new tariffs as well.

00:25:10.000 According to the Washington Post, both the EU and Canada hit back Wednesday at President Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs with levies of their own on billions of dollars worth of U.S. products, including bourbon and motorcycles, while warning of further retaliation as well.

00:25:23.000 Apparently, the European Commission, which is the executive branch of the EU, According to the Washington Post, it will reimpose tariffs dating to Trump's first term on April 1st.

00:25:32.000 European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, we deeply regret this measure.

00:25:36.000 Jobs are at stake, price is up, nobody needs that.

00:25:39.000 And by the way, if you're trying to face down Chinese predation and Chinese growth, actually pushing away countries that are then going to turn to China for more of their product and to Chinese markets, that's not the way to do this on sort of a national security basis.

00:25:51.000 Folks, none of this is a great way to face down Chinese growth. 1.00

00:25:55.000 The fact is that China is a geopolitical enemy of the United States.

00:25:58.000 They do everything from cheating on trade to stealing our IP to maybe threatening your identity.

00:26:05.000 Tax season is upon us.

00:26:06.000 While we may be weary of numbers, some deserve our immediate attention.

00:26:08.000 $16.5 billion in IRS refunds flagged for potential identity fraud last year.

00:26:13.000 Identity theft tax fraud surged by an alarming 20% in 2024 alone, affecting thousands of unsuspecting Americans.

00:26:19.000 But there is hope in these numbers as well.

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00:27:09.000 Also, let's talk about that car you own.

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00:27:12.000 The one that's rusting in the front yard.

00:27:13.000 The one you're paying to keep registered and insured.

00:27:15.000 It's taking up space on the driveway.

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00:27:18.000 It's not doing anybody any good.

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00:27:52.000 Call now or head on over to carsforkids.org slash Ben to help fund kids' futures today.

00:27:57.000 That's carsforkids.org slash Ben.

00:27:59.000 Remember, that's cars with a K. Again, that's carsforkids.org slash Ben.

00:28:04.000 And you're not doing anything else with that junky old vehicle.

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00:28:09.000 carsforkids.org slash Ben.

00:28:10.000 That's cars with a K. Meanwhile, Canada is turning toward the left, not toward the right.

00:28:15.000 And if you want parties who are more right wing elected in allied countries, then perhaps what you ought to do is not provide fodder to the opponents of those allies in those countries.

00:28:27.000 If Pierre Pelleve becomes not the prime minister of Canada because of President Trump's tariffs, that is not going to be a good thing.

00:28:35.000 Meanwhile, the Canadians are injecting their own brand of uncertainty into the markets because they're saying to everybody else, listen, if President Trump is coming after us, who the hell won't he come after?

00:28:44.000 We have like a free trade agreement that we signed with President Trump that he negotiated in his first term and he's still coming after us.

00:28:49.000 According to Politico, Foreign Minister Melanie Jolie plans to welcome her G7 counterparts to Quebec with a warning, quote, if the U.S. can do this to us, their closest friend, then nobody is safe.

00:29:00.000 Jolie told reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday she plans to raise the issue with European and British members, advising them Canada is the canary in the coal mine.

00:29:08.000 Speaking to reporters from Ireland on Wednesday, Secretary of State Rubio said that there will be a lot to talk about at the G7 meeting.

00:29:14.000 Quote, it is not a meeting about how we're going to take over Canada.

00:29:17.000 But again, the more that the Trump administration makes that joke, because we're not taking over Canada, the more the Trump administration makes that joke, the more the Canadians, particularly on the left, respond as though he is serious.

00:29:29.000 Here is the Canadian Minister of Finance, Dominique LeBlanc, who says precisely that.

00:29:35.000 These partnerships go back decades, but Canada is an independent, sovereign, proud country.

00:29:41.000 And frankly, Canadians find it insulting that somebody as important in global affairs as the president of the United States of America sort of belittles Canada by saying, oh, you know, you're not an independent, sovereign country.

00:29:58.000 You should join the United States.

00:30:02.000 Again, this sort of thing, what's the impact?

00:30:08.000 Why is it smart?

00:30:09.000 Why is it smart?

00:30:11.000 Stop this.

00:30:12.000 What is the goal?

00:30:14.000 At least articulate the goal.

00:30:16.000 I don't want President Trump's numbers going down.

00:30:19.000 He's doing too many important things right now.

00:30:20.000 Here's CNN reporting on President Trump's numbers on the economy.

00:30:24.000 It is by far issue number one for voters.

00:30:27.000 Nothing really comes close overall for Americans.

00:30:32.000 On that score, he's actually performing a tick below his overall approval rating.

00:30:36.000 44% approve of his handling of the economy.

00:30:40.000 You see that there below his job overall there, the economy, 44%.

00:30:45.000 56%, Sarah, disapproved.

00:30:48.000 He is minus 12 percentage points on the issue that Americans say is the most important.

00:30:56.000 Now, as I say, there are too many important things that President Trump has to do in the next two years to get caught up.

00:31:05.000 And the reality is that unless you have a robust tariff regime for a very long period of time that is specifically designed to increase prices on American consumers, you are not going to get a vast number of manufacturing jobs back into the United States.

00:31:24.000 And even if you do, companies are going to start trying to drive down prices through automation.

00:31:31.000 What is the goal?

00:31:32.000 Again, that's the question we should all be asking ourselves.

00:31:34.000 I hope the Trump administration is asking itself that.

00:31:36.000 What is the goal?

00:31:36.000 What are we trying to accomplish here?

00:31:38.000 Because there are too many other important things.

00:31:39.000 And there are too many good things happening.

00:31:41.000 So President Trump, yesterday, cut half the staff at the Department of Education.

00:31:45.000 That's great.

00:31:46.000 And here he was explaining that the goal is to move all of that power back to the states, which is precisely what he should be doing.

00:31:53.000 We have a dream.

00:31:54.000 And you know what the dream is?

00:31:55.000 We're going to move the Department of Education.

00:31:57.000 We're going to move education into the states.

00:32:00.000 So that the states, instead of bureaucrats working in Washington, so that the states can run education.

00:32:07.000 Yes, that is correct.

00:32:08.000 That is good.

00:32:10.000 If every president's agenda is tied to kind of the low point of the agenda, this is true for every president, whatever is the worst thing in the agenda tends to define the entire agenda.

00:32:20.000 Then what you want to do is avoid the boo-boo. 0.99

00:32:22.000 This is a good thing.

00:32:23.000 It's a necessary thing.

00:32:25.000 Cuts to the DOE are undoubtedly an excellent thing.

00:32:28.000 Not only that, other good things are happening, too.

00:32:31.000 Yesterday, according to Breitbart, EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced she would move to clear the hundreds of backlog cases to clean air, saying the Biden administration focused on ideological pursuits rather than the agency's core mission.

00:32:42.000 The agency said it would commit to working with states and tribes to resolve hundreds of backlog state implementation plans and tribal implementation plans the Biden-Harris administration could not or would not resolve.

00:32:53.000 The EPA administrator wrote, quote, with more than 140 million Americans living in non-attainment areas around the country, cooperative federalism and clearing out the state implementation plan backlog will make significant strides to improving the air we breathe.

00:33:05.000 Now again, one of the goals here is to also free up industry.

00:33:10.000 The Clean Air Act requires the EPA to review and approve all of the so-called SIPs that meet the requirements of the law.

00:33:17.000 But many states have raised concerns about being punished for emissions outside the control of their state.

00:33:21.000 An air quality monitor is not being placed in the most logistical areas.

00:33:24.000 The EPA says that it's going to make sure that air quality is protected, but also they're going to generate more economic growth by getting rid of stupid regulations and stupid regulatory overreach.

00:33:37.000 Zeldin said the EPA is going to aggressively pursue an agenda powering the great American comeback.

00:33:42.000 That is our agenda we wanted to announce with you.

00:33:46.000 EPA wants to help power the great American comeback.

00:33:48.000 This is the kind of stuff that needs to be focused on.

00:33:50.000 Like, let's focus on those things.

00:33:52.000 Meanwhile, it's funny.

00:33:54.000 If you go back to that CNN poll, what you will see is that when it comes to handling the federal budget, President Trump's highest approval ratings are in that particular area.

00:34:01.000 He's got immigration of 51% handling the federal budget at something like 48%.

00:34:05.000 And that's due to Elon Musk.

00:34:06.000 Elon Musk is out there doing doge.

00:34:09.000 And the media are still fulminating over all of this, complaining about Elon Musk.

00:34:13.000 The reality is that President Trump has handled this whole situation with aplomb.

00:34:17.000 He's handled it quite brilliantly, actually.

00:34:20.000 Allowing Elon Musk to be the face of Doge means that Elon takes all the incoming.

00:34:24.000 Elon is not an elected official.

00:34:25.000 Elon is the richest person in the world.

00:34:27.000 Elon owns X. So Elon can take it.

00:34:30.000 It's not just an Elon condition.

00:34:31.000 Elon can take it.

00:34:32.000 Meanwhile, President Trump can sit over here and just reap the benefits of having a very, very famous person be the focus of the ire of his opposition while the good effects are actually accruing to his administration.

00:34:45.000 Meanwhile, the media don't know how to handle it.

00:34:47.000 Dana Bash on CNN had maybe the funniest line yesterday.

00:34:49.000 She was talking about big balls again.

00:34:52.000 This would be one of the young Elon Musk staffers who's going through the federal government.

00:34:57.000 And she started talking about apparently how Elon Musk likes when she says balls on TV. I don't even know what's happening now.

00:35:03.000 I think at the risk of Elon Musk tweeting about me, because apparently he likes when I say the word balls on TV, I will say that balls and strikes when you're talking about Steve Bannon.

00:35:14.000 When he calls balls and strikes, he calls strikes balls and balls strikes.

00:35:19.000 Oh boy.

00:35:20.000 Okay.

00:35:21.000 Great things happening over at CNN. And the complaints by people like Rashida Tlaib about how Elon Musk is being funded by the government, they just don't ring true.

00:35:30.000 So Rashida Tlaib was out there screaming yesterday about how billionaires are being funded and Medicaid is being cut. 1.00

00:35:35.000 Medicaid is not being cut.

00:35:36.000 Here we go.

00:35:38.000 Stop lying to the American people.

00:35:41.000 Some of you have over 50, even some is over 60% of folks that depend on Medicaid.

00:35:48.000 So when we say fund care, not billionaires, we mean it.

00:35:53.000 Oh, man.

00:35:56.000 These are the best the Democrats have to offer.

00:35:58.000 Again, credit to John Fetterman for being the only sane person in the building.

00:36:01.000 He was on MSNBC, and MSNBC was suggesting once again that the Republicans were in league with the oligarchs, and Fetterman's like, come on, man, really?

00:36:11.000 And I would just, I would ask Democrats, like, start talking like a regular person.

00:36:15.000 Most people are not sure what an oligarch is, you know?

00:36:19.000 It's like, okay, is an oligarch, is it like a rich, is it a rich, a rich dude or woman?

00:36:24.000 Okay, well, but there's also another, a little secret too.

00:36:28.000 Democrats, you know, we like billionaires if they're giving to our...

00:36:33.000 To our causes or to our party as well, too.

00:36:36.000 But there's a difference.

00:36:37.000 Hold on.

00:36:38.000 There's a difference between a very wealthy donor.

00:36:40.000 It's unlimited money.

00:36:41.000 That's the poison of American democracy. 0.57

00:36:43.000 I'm not sure if they necessarily are motivated just based on money.

00:36:48.000 Most of those folks, whether it's Bezos or Musk, they have far more than you can spend in a hundred lifetimes.

00:36:56.000 So for that, I think...

00:36:58.000 You know, I think scarcity defines the luxury.

00:37:01.000 So that's why a lot of them want to be engaged on that, because they have unlimited money.

00:37:05.000 So I think they want to be part of the conversation.

00:37:11.000 Again, leave it to the man with brain damage to be the only intelligent person inside the Democratic Party.

00:37:16.000 Meanwhile, other important things being done by the Trump administration.

00:37:20.000 Yes, we should be deporting Hamas next. 0.98

00:37:21.000 I don't even know why this is controversial.

00:37:23.000 If you are a supporter of Hamas here on a visa, here on a green card, You should go.

00:37:28.000 We don't need more of you.

00:37:30.000 I'm confused as to why this is even an issue.

00:37:33.000 Again, we're not talking about American citizens who are participating in speech we don't like.

00:37:37.000 We are talking about people who are here as guests of the United States or trying to earn their way into citizenship.

00:37:43.000 This notion that they magically ought to be treated exactly the same as natural-born American citizens or people who have already earned their citizenship is, like, if that's the case, then why do we even have immigration standards at all? 0.52

00:37:55.000 Maybe we just shouldn't.

00:37:56.000 Maybe being a terrorist supporter should just not be on your immigration application.

00:38:00.000 This is all absurd.

00:38:02.000 Marco Rubio had the best response to this yesterday.

00:38:05.000 Secretary of State Rubio has invoked his power as the Secretary of State to say that this guy is a foreign policy threat.

00:38:10.000 He's a member of a group that actively called for armed uprising against Western civilization.

00:38:14.000 Here is Secretary of State Rubio yesterday.

00:38:17.000 When you come to the United States as a visitor, which is what a visa is, which is how this individual entered this country, as a visitor's visa.

00:38:25.000 You are here as a visitor.

00:38:26.000 We can deny you that visa.

00:38:28.000 We can deny you that.

00:38:29.000 If you tell us, when you apply, hi, I'm trying to get into the United States on a student visa, I am a big supporter of Hamas, a murderous, barbaric group that kidnaps children, that... 0.96

00:38:39.000 Teenage girls, that takes hostages, that allows them to die in captivity, that returns more bodies than live hostages.

00:38:46.000 If you tell us that you are in favor of a group like this, and if you tell us when you apply for your visa, and by the way, I intend to come to your country as a student and rile up all kinds of anti-Jewish student, anti-Semitic activities.

00:38:58.000 I intend to shut down your universities.

00:39:00.000 If you told us all these things when you applied for a visa, we would deny your visa.

00:39:04.000 I hope we would.

00:39:04.000 If you actually end up doing that once you're in this country on such a visa.

00:39:09.000 We will revoke it.

00:39:10.000 And if you end up having a green card, not citizenship, but a green card as a result of that visa while you're here and those activities, we're going to kick you out. 0.98

00:39:19.000 This seems inarguable, and yet Democrats are somehow finding a way to argue with all of this.

00:39:23.000 The lawyer from Mahmoud Khalil read a letter from Mahmoud Khalil's wife yesterday suggesting he had been kidnapped.

00:39:30.000 Oh, the irony!

00:39:31.000 Oh, the irony of a man who cheers for actual kidnappings by a terrorist group claiming he has been kidnapped because the legal process is now kicking him out of the country for being a supporter of that terror group.

00:39:42.000 My husband was kidnapped from our home and it's shameful that the United States government continues to hold him because he stood for the rights and lives of his people.

00:39:56.000 I demand his immediate release and return to our family.

00:40:01.000 His disappearance has devastated our lives.

00:40:05.000 Every day without him is filled with uncertainty.

00:40:09.000 Not just for me, but for our entire family and community.

00:40:14.000 I'm sorry, the family of Idan Alexander, the American citizen being held in Gaza by Hamas, would like to have a word.

00:40:20.000 I've yet to see the Democrats tweeting out, free Idan Alexander, an actual American citizen being held by an actual honest-to-God terror group, kidnapped, into Gaza.

00:40:29.000 And yet here we have...

00:40:30.000 This lawyer for the wife reading a letter in which she claims that he was kidnapped.

00:40:34.000 Nope, that's called the legal process taking place.

00:40:38.000 Right now, Khalil is being held in Louisiana pending deportation.

00:40:42.000 The U.S. District Court judge, a guy named Jesse Furman, who is heavily associated, shall we say, with family members of the left, his family members work for the Obama administration, set a schedule on Wednesday for the lawyers to present written arguments later this week.

00:40:54.000 He said his order to keep Khalil in an immigration detention facility in Louisiana was due not to the merits of any arguments, but to provide time to address the important issues his case raises.

00:41:04.000 It's unclear where the case is going to be held.

00:41:06.000 We have heard he has a green card.

00:41:07.000 It is not totally clear whether that is true or not.

00:41:09.000 We'll assume that he does for the sake of argument.

00:41:12.000 Again, the real question in all this is how this guy got in the country in the first place.

00:41:17.000 Who is actually analyzing the student visas?

00:41:20.000 Who decided that America desperately needs someone who worked for the UNRWA? In the United States to study at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, where apparently his only job was to agitate on behalf of Hamas.

00:41:34.000 Amazing stuff.

00:41:35.000 Meanwhile, Democrats embracing him full scale.

00:41:37.000 A person who may in fact become the next mayor of New York, this person apparently is running second in polls to Andrew Cuomo right now, a person named Zoran Kwame Mamdani, went to an event yesterday at which Borders are Tom Homan was.

00:41:51.000 And he started trying to yell at Tom Homan.

00:41:53.000 So first of all, I do like the hold me back element of this.

00:41:56.000 Hold me back! 0.99

00:41:56.000 If he got within an arm's length of Tom Homan, Tom Homan would eviscerate him. 0.99

00:42:01.000 Tom Homan is one of the scariest people I've ever been in a room with.

00:42:04.000 We were in a room with him last week.

00:42:06.000 And he is simultaneously one of the nicest people and one of the scariest people you will ever meet.

00:42:10.000 Here is Zoran confronting the Trump border czar over his immigration policy, including the policy surrounding Mahmoud Khalil.

00:42:18.000 How many more New Yorkers will you get to me?

00:42:24.000 How many more New Yorkers will you get to me?

00:42:26.000 Do you believe in the First Amendment?

00:42:28.000 Do you believe in the First Amendment, Tom Holman?

00:42:31.000 Yeah, hold them back.

00:42:34.000 Hold them back.

00:42:36.000 Okay, if Democrats want to do this, I guess they can do this all day long.

00:42:40.000 Meanwhile, negotiations continue over the possibility of Ukraine-Russia ceasefire.

00:42:45.000 As noted yesterday, the Ukrainians have embraced the idea of a 30-day ceasefire without preconditions at this point.

00:42:51.000 They're hoping to negotiate for the return of their children, their actual kidnapped children.

00:42:54.000 Kids have been kidnapped from Donbass and Crimea and sent back into Russia in place with families who are not their own. 0.53

00:43:00.000 Actually, I mean, it's horrific.

00:43:02.000 Caroline Levitt at the White House said, we hope that the Russians will accept this.

00:43:06.000 The president's team continues to be in correspondence with the Russians.

00:43:11.000 In fact, our national security advisor, Mike Waltz, had a call with his Russian counterpart today in pursuit of ending this war and striking a peace deal with Russia and with Ukraine.

00:43:23.000 We had great progress on that front yesterday with the secretary of state and our national security advisor having those peace talks in Saudi Arabia.

00:43:31.000 the Ukrainians have finally agreed to a ceasefire and have agreed to this long-term peace plan.

00:43:37.000 And we expect, we hope, and we urge the Russians to do the same.

00:43:41.000 And our team is currently working on getting this done.

00:43:43.000 Secretary of State Marco Rubio is saying the same intelligence sharing has continued with the Ukrainians' It should. 1.00

00:43:50.000 Because one of the things that's happening right now is that the Russians are pushing very aggressively back against Ukrainian gains in Kursk, which is a Russian area.

00:43:57.000 The reason the Ukrainians are trying to hold that is for purposes of negotiation.

00:44:01.000 They want to say, you withdraw from here and we'll withdraw from there.

00:44:03.000 The Russians are taking this time to really up the ante. 0.98

00:44:06.000 Here's Secretary of State Rubio saying, listen, the Ukrainians are at the table.

00:44:10.000 We await Russia's response.

00:44:12.000 The United States has done a good thing for the world in bringing this process forward, and now we all eagerly await the Russian response and urge them strongly to consider ending all hostilities so people will stop dying, so bullets will stop flying, and so a process can begin to find a permanent peace.

00:44:34.000 Okay, so the question now is whether Russia is going to take the United States up on this offer.

00:44:39.000 It appears the answer for now is not even remotely.

00:44:42.000 According to the Financial Times, quote, Russia does not want a temporary ceasefire in Ukraine and is pushing for a long-term peace settlement that will take into account its interests and concerns, according to a senior aide to Vladimir Putin.

00:44:53.000 Yuri Ushakov, the president...

00:44:55.000 Foreign policy advisor in Russia told state television on Thursday the 30-day ceasefire proposed after talks between the U.S. and Ukraine this week, quote, was nothing other than a temporary breather for Ukrainian troops.

00:45:04.000 Nobody needs steps that imitate peaceful actions in this situation, said Ushakov, adding Moscow hopes the U.S. knows our position and wants to believe they will take it into account as we work together going forward.

00:45:14.000 That is Putin taking an extremely hard line prior to the arrival of Steve Witkoff, the president's envoy, who's arriving today in Moscow.

00:45:23.000 The demands that are being made right now are crazy from the Russians. 1.00

00:45:27.000 I mean, they're just not doable.

00:45:29.000 According to a document written in February by an influential Moscow-based think tank closed to the Russian Federal Security Service, the FSB, which is sort of the modern KGB, lays out Russia's maximalist demands for any end to the conflict in Ukraine.

00:45:42.000 It dismisses any preliminary plans for a peace deal within 100 days as impossible to realize.

00:45:46.000 And says a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis cannot happen before 2026. That's them attempting to get Trump to pressure Ukraine.

00:45:52.000 That's what they're doing.

00:45:53.000 They're saying they know the midterms are coming up.

00:45:55.000 They know Trump has pledged an end to the war.

00:45:56.000 And so they feel that they have the negotiating leverage.

00:45:59.000 The document rejects any plan for any peacekeepers to Ukraine.

00:46:03.000 It insists on recognition of Russia's sovereignty over the Ukrainian territories.

00:46:06.000 It is already seized.

00:46:07.000 It calls for a further carve-up.

00:46:09.000 Through the creation of a buffer zone in Ukraine's northeast on the border with Russian regions such as Bryansk and Belgorod, as well as a demilitarized zone in southern Ukraine near Crimea.

00:46:19.000 That latter would affect the Odessa region.

00:46:21.000 So in other words, they actually want more territory than they have actually won on the battlefield.

00:46:24.000 In addition, the document discusses the need for the complete dismantling of the current Ukrainian government.

00:46:30.000 So this is a non-starter, obviously.

00:46:33.000 This is a non-starter from the Russians. 1.00

00:46:35.000 Okay, so if it's a non-starter from the Russians, the administration is going to have to bring the hammer.

00:46:40.000 President Trump suggested that that is very much on the table yesterday.

00:46:42.000 Here he was.

00:46:44.000 But yeah, there are things you could do that wouldn't be pleasant in a financial sense.

00:46:49.000 I can do things financially that would be very bad for Russia. 0.82

00:46:52.000 I don't want to do that because I want to get peace.

00:46:54.000 I want to see peace, and we'll see.

00:46:56.000 But in a financial sense, yeah, we could do things very bad for Russia.

00:47:00.000 It would be devastating for Russia, but I don't want to do that because I want to see peace.

00:47:06.000 Okay, well, whether we want to see peace or not, Russia may not want to see peace.

00:47:09.000 And if that's not the case, then it's going to be very difficult to reach anything like a deal.

00:47:13.000 Well, folks, as always, it has been a busy week at the White House.

00:47:17.000 And our Daily Wire White House correspondent, Mary Margaret Olehan, is on point to cover all of it.

00:47:23.000 Mary Margaret, welcome back to the show.

00:47:27.000 Hi, Ben.

00:47:27.000 It's great to be here.

00:47:30.000 So a lot going on this week at the White House.

00:47:32.000 You were able to ask a question this week.

00:47:38.000 Yes, so at the briefing a couple days ago, Caroline Levitt called on me.

00:47:42.000 I was able to ask about Zelensky's letter to President Trump, which we learned about last week in President Trump's joint address to the nation.

00:47:50.000 And he shared that Zelensky had sent him a letter.

00:47:52.000 He didn't really share what else Zelensky had said.

00:47:55.000 And Special Envoy...

00:47:57.000 Witkoff revealed earlier this week that Zelensky actually apologized in that letter.

00:48:01.000 And so we thought we should know more about what was said in that letter and what the president and Zelensky are talking about.

00:48:07.000 So that's what I asked.

00:48:08.000 And Caroline didn't really expand on the contents of the letter, but she did share with us that that very day, Secretary Rubio was in Saudi Arabia meeting with Ukrainian officials.

00:48:18.000 She told us that the talks were going really well.

00:48:20.000 They were very positive.

00:48:21.000 And shortly after that press briefing ended, we learned that Ukraine and the United States were in a great position and had agreed to a ceasefire and more.

00:48:30.000 So that's ongoing.

00:48:31.000 We're hoping for more developments there.

00:48:34.000 And we know President Trump will be meeting with members of the We're looking forward to what comes next in that area.

00:48:44.000 You know, President Trump has been very emphatic about his desire for peace between Russia and Ukraine, and that's what this whole White House has been gearing up towards for the last several weeks.

00:48:55.000 So, Mary Margaret, obviously a lot of eyes on Russia and Ukraine.

00:48:58.000 Russia today apparently suggested that they were not going to sign on to any temporary ceasefire, that instead they were going to seek some sort of permanent settlement.

00:49:04.000 Of course, the terms of that permanent settlement are extraordinarily onerous on Ukraine.

00:49:07.000 Very unlikely Ukraine accepts that, so we'll have to see how all of that plays out.

00:49:11.000 Meanwhile, the presidents of the United States hosted the president of Ireland in the Oval yesterday, and they got into a number of topics ranging from trade to his love for Conor McGregor.

00:49:20.000 What was the mood in the room like?

00:49:23.000 Well, that was a really interesting visit.

00:49:25.000 Actually, to backtrack a little bit, I was able to start the whole day at the Vice President's residence up in northwest D.C. because that's where the Irish Premier Michael Martin started his day as well, at a breakfast at the Vice President's residence.

00:49:39.000 And Justice Brett Kavanaugh and his wife were in attendance, RFK Jr., a number of other high-profile Irish Catholic, Irish public figures in the Trump administration and in Washington, D.C. And I was able to post some pictures from outside.

00:49:55.000 I think it's really interesting to see what the Vance's life looks like up there in the house where Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff used to live.

00:50:01.000 Really interesting turn of events there.

00:50:03.000 They've got a little playhouse outside the residence, as well as a swing for the Vance kids who had gone off to school in their very highly secured vehicles before we got there.

00:50:13.000 So all of that was really interesting.

00:50:15.000 And then, of course, Vance hosted Michael Martin at his residence.

00:50:18.000 They talked about the importance of the Irish-American relationship.

00:50:22.000 Which is also what President Trump and Michael Martin talked about in the Oval Office yesterday.

00:50:26.000 One kind of cute moment, I guess you would say, was at the breakfast, Vance joked that he was wearing St. Patrick's Day socks with shamrocks on them.

00:50:34.000 And he said to Martin, you're going to have to defend me if President Trump doesn't like them because he's a very conservative dresser.

00:50:40.000 Well, sure enough, later in the day in the Oval Office, President Trump kind of teased Vice President Vance about his socks, which, you know, had these massive green shamrocks on them, and said he loved them.

00:50:49.000 So that was a funny moment.

00:50:51.000 Also, another one that was notable, Brian Glenn, another White House reporter, asked Michael Martin about Rosie O'Donnell, saying that she wants to move to Ireland.

00:51:01.000 And asked why anyone would want Rosie O'Donnell in their country, which is a little bit of a surprise question.

00:51:06.000 I think a lot of us wouldn't have expected that one.

00:51:08.000 You can see in the video, Vice President Vance kind of doubling over, covering his face and laughing.

00:51:14.000 And Trump had some funny quips in there as well.

00:51:17.000 But overall, you know...

00:51:18.000 Michael Martin talked about how important the relationship between Ireland and the United States is.

00:51:24.000 He also talked about the role that President Trump is playing in peace between Russia and Ukraine and really emphasized his interest in furthering that peace as well.

00:51:34.000 Mary Margaret, really appreciate your time.

00:51:36.000 And she, again, is the person on the ground at the White House keeping an eye on things every single day.

00:51:41.000 Mary Margaret, good to see you.

00:51:43.000 Good to see you, too.

00:51:49.000 Megan Markle.

00:51:49.000 Yes, she's back.

00:51:50.000 She won't.

00:51:51.000 Can we deport her? 0.87

00:51:52.000 And I understand she's an American citizen, but, you know, maybe we can make a trade with the Brits or something. 0.54

00:51:57.000 First, you have to be a member.

00:51:58.000 Head on over to DW right now, and then you can access everything.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - March 13, 2025

Democrats To SHUT DOWN The Government?

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