The Ben Shapiro Show - Did DEI Cause the DC Crash?!

00:00:00.000 Questions continue to abound in this horrifying tragedy outside Reagan National Airport where an American Airlines flight coming from Wichita, Kansas was struck by a Blackhawk helicopter.

00:00:08.000 By the way, Blackhawk helicopters are not small helicopters.

00:00:11.000 I'm not talking about like a news helicopter.

00:00:12.000 This is a big helicopter.

00:00:14.000 It is a transport helicopter.

00:00:15.000 It typically carries VIP guests and such.

00:00:18.000 And apparently, the helicopter was swirling at possibly above 200 feet, which is usually the limit where they are testing in terms of the height, and struck basically in the side.

00:00:27.000 This American Airlines.

00:00:29.000 Flight killing everyone aboard 67 dead.

00:00:32.000 A horrifying scenario, obviously.

00:00:35.000 Flight 5342, a bombardier CRJ-700 had 60 passengers and four crew members on board.

00:00:41.000 The three troops on board the helicopter were apparently conducting a training flight and likely wore night vision goggles.

00:00:45.000 That may be relevant because if you're wearing night vision goggles, this could mean that perhaps your vision to the sides is not nearly as good.

00:00:53.000 Was this an air traffic control problem?

00:00:55.000 Was this a pilot error issue?

00:00:57.000 All of that is still very much up in the air.

00:01:00.000 There have been near misses in the past.

00:01:01.000 And the first question I think that a lot of people are asking is, why the hell are Black Hawk helicopters operating at night in an area where passenger jets are coming in?

00:01:10.000 That's totally insane, obviously.

00:01:12.000 And there are some strange oddities about this particular flight path, because it turns out that normally, apparently, Runway 1 is the one that is typically used to accept incoming flights into Reagan National.

00:01:23.000 Air traffic control had called this flight, the CRJ, and told them that you should instead take runway 33, which brought them across the Potomac, and then the helicopter struck them as they were coming across the Potomac.

00:01:33.000 But apparently near misses of this sort tend to happen a lot more often than expected.

00:01:38.000 According to Reuters, U.S. commercial pilot Rick Redfern was preparing to land at Reagan Washington National Airport about a decade ago when he spotted a bright red Coast Guard helicopter hovering about 50 feet above the Potomac River.

00:01:47.000 Air traffic control promptly warned the helicopter pilot to stay clear.

00:01:50.000 Redfern said he used evasive maneuvers to avoid it and avert a potential disaster.

00:01:54.000 That was in daytime when visibility was clearer.

00:01:56.000 And it's almost unthinkable that this happened considering how sophisticated the machinery is, how sophisticated our ability to see planes in the air even at night is now.

00:02:06.000 But to attribute it to anything other than accident at this point would be to move beyond the available evidence for sure.

00:02:13.000 A collision on Wednesday night between the Black Hawk military helicopter and American Airlines subsidiary CRJ 700 regional jet has stirred haunting memories for Redfern and other pilots who have faced challenges at landing at Washington Airport.

00:02:24.000 Apparently, planes approaching the airport must navigate a precise and narrow flight path to avoid restricted airspace around the nearby White House and Pentagon.

00:02:31.000 That turn from the eastern side along the river to turn into runway 33 is very, very tight, said Redfern.

00:02:35.000 It is unclear what caused...

00:02:37.000 The crash.

00:02:38.000 Apparently the black boxes have indeed been recovered, so we'll have a better window into what was going on aboard the two aircraft before they collided.

00:02:45.000 Seven pilots told Reuters the landing at Reagan Airport is unique due to the congested space, along with the inability to communicate directly with military aircraft, which actually operate on different radio frequencies.

00:02:55.000 The airport also has shorter runways, including Runway 33, that is generally reserved for smaller aircraft.

00:03:00.000 That means traversing narrow airspace because planes can't cross the eastern shoreline of the Potomac because that airport is also regularly used by the military for training.

00:03:08.000 So, again, this is a horrifying accident.

00:03:11.000 That appears to be the story at this point.

00:03:15.000 Now, air traffic control was perfectly aware that these aircraft were in proximity with one another.

00:03:21.000 We know this because they're recordings of an air traffic controller heard asking the Army helicopter to pass behind the regional jet.

00:03:30.000 Commercial aircraft use very high-frequency radios to communicate.

00:03:33.000 Military aircraft operate on ultra-high-frequency channels, so they can't actually directly communicate.

00:03:39.000 But Army Secretary nominee Daniel Driscoll said during a Senate hearing the crash may prompt the military to reconsider conducting training operations near the Washington, D.C. airspace.

00:03:48.000 Well, yes, that would seem to be the obvious solution to all of this.

00:03:53.000 Just a horrifying scenario.

00:03:56.000 There's an entire family that was wiped out in this plane crash.

00:03:59.000 Obviously, everybody who's involved is innocent.

00:04:01.000 It's horrifying on every possible level.

00:04:05.000 Brad Bowman, military analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Black Hawk pilot said, quote, Initial indications suggest this may have been a checkride or periodic evaluation by an experienced instructor pilot of a less experienced pilot.

00:04:16.000 A checkride, as opposed to a normal training flight, creates some unique dynamics in the cockpit.

00:04:20.000 In a checkride, the less experienced pilot can be nervous and eager to not make mistakes, while the instructor pilot is watching to see how other pilot responds to different developments.

00:04:28.000 Sometimes, an instructor pilot will test the less experienced aviator to see how they respond, but such a technique would have been unusual and inadvisable in that location, given the reduced margin for error.

00:04:37.000 Apparently, the instructor pilot had 1,000 hours of flight time, that's considered high.

00:04:41.000 The co-pilot had 500 hours, according to NPR, which is considered average, although there have been some accusations that 500 hours in the air is actually considered sort of below average.

00:04:50.000 Apparently, it was a male pilot and a female co-pilot. 0.99

00:04:54.000 The Pentagon has not yet released the names of those who were on board.

00:04:57.000 They are still apparently notifying next of kin.

00:04:59.000 Officials tell NPR the Blackhawk was supposed to be flying at a maximum of 200 feet.

00:05:03.000 Sources say it was flying at least 100 feet higher.

00:05:06.000 So, at the very least, what you're looking at here is significant pilot error.

00:05:11.000 All sorts of controversy broke out yesterday when President came forward to do a press conference on this particular issue.

00:05:18.000 And he blamed the crash, at least in part.

00:05:21.000 A group within the FAA, another story, determined that the workforce was too white, that they had concerted efforts to get the administration to change that and to change it immediately.

00:05:42.000 This was in the Obama administration just prior to my getting there.

00:05:47.000 And we took care of...

00:05:49.000 African Americans, Hispanic Americans, we took care of everybody at levels that nobody's ever seen before.

00:05:55.000 It's one of the reasons I won.

00:05:57.000 But they actually came out with a directive, too white. 0.84

00:06:00.000 And we want the people that are competent.

00:06:06.000 Okay, now, was this crash related to DEI? It's unclear at this point.

00:06:11.000 We simply don't have enough information to know who even the pilots were.

00:06:15.000 What exactly were the procedures that led to this horrifying accident?

00:06:19.000 What exactly happened?

00:06:20.000 I mean, all those details are unclear.

00:06:21.000 It is, however, true that the FAA in particular, the Federal Aviation Administration, has been direly affected by DEI protocols and procedures over the course of the last decade.

00:06:32.000 I mean, truly in negative and horrifying ways.

00:06:35.000 According to the Washington Times.

00:06:37.000 Years before Wednesday's fatal collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet approaching Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, critics warned that the Obama and Biden administrations had jeopardized safety by prioritizing DEI at the Federal Aviation Administration.

00:06:51.000 Now, the suggestion of such, of course, has made Democrats insane.

00:06:56.000 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, he said, It's one thing for Internet pundits to spew up conspiracy theories.

00:07:00.000 It's another for the President of the United States to throw idle speculation, even as victims are still being recovered and families are still being notified.

00:07:07.000 So, is the criticism of Trump's timing or is the criticism of Trump's content?

00:07:11.000 Those are two different things.

00:07:12.000 You can make the case that President Trump shouldn't be talking about DEI and the FAA until we have more details in.

00:07:19.000 But I think what Schumer's actually objecting to is the idea that DEI is bad inside the FAA at all.

00:07:24.000 He thinks DEI is good.

00:07:26.000 Diversity, equity, and inclusion.

00:07:27.000 Affirmative action protocols.

00:07:29.000 Systems designed to put people who are unqualified in positions of high authority.

00:07:34.000 Democrats tend to think that sort of stuff is good.

00:07:36.000 Of course, it pervaded every aspect of the Biden administration, according to Joe Biden.

00:07:41.000 Critics warned, according to the Washington Times, that the FDA's focus on DEI diverted time and resources from air travel safety.

00:07:47.000 It hobbled the agency as it grappled with air traffic controller shortages, antiquated monitoring equipment, and an increase in near misses on crowded airport runways.

00:07:54.000 An unidentified source told the Associated Press on Thursday the air traffic controller in charge of monitoring the airspace at the time of the fatal collision was performing the work of two people.

00:08:02.000 So, in other words, because they couldn't get enough, quote-unquote, diverse members of the FAA, they were simply under-hiring for the FAA, and that meant that they were short-staffed during critical times.

00:08:12.000 Air safety concerns, according to the Washington Times, prompted 11 Republican attorneys general to write the FAA administrator, Michael Whitaker, last year to question the administration's hiring practices and priorities.

00:08:23.000 They said, quote, unfortunately, the Biden FAA, under your administration, appears to prioritize virtue-signaling diversity efforts over aviation experience.

00:08:30.000 And this calls into question the agency's commitment to safety.

00:08:34.000 And again, that is not wrong.

00:08:36.000 It is true that the Obama and Biden administrations prioritized DEI over safety.

00:08:43.000 The Biden-era FAA website said, quote, quote, the FAA's mission involves securing the skies of a diverse nation.

00:08:48.000 It only makes sense the workforce responsible for that mission reflect the nation.

00:08:51.000 In 2022, the FAA pledged to diversify its workforce by rethinking its hiring practices.

00:08:57.000 Administration officials assigned long-term goals to amplify diversity, accessibility, and LGBTQ plus minus divided by sign issues.

00:09:05.000 A 2022 performance target required the agency, quote, host a national symposium with internal and external stakeholders to socialize efforts on the use of gender-neutral language at the FAA. In 2013, under Barack Obama, the FAA started using a biographical assessment to increase the hiring of preferred minority racial groups at air traffic control centers.

00:09:25.000 The assessment asked applicants about their participation in school sports.

00:09:28.000 In fact, some of the documents from the FAA, according to one reporter named Trace Woodgrains, one of the documents that was asked, one of the questionnaires that was put forward by the FAA, and this was revealed in a lawsuit, a class-action lawsuit, called Brigida v.

00:09:43.000 Buttigieg.

00:09:45.000 Apparently, the questionnaire awarded points for factors like lowest grade in high school is science, which is psychotic.

00:09:53.000 If a questionnaire awards points for you're bad at science, and therefore you get some sort of affirmative action appointment at the FAA, it seems to me you want the people who are explicitly good at science at the FAA. Call me crazy, but that's insane.

00:10:07.000 Well, President Trump, for precisely that reason, slammed Pete Buttigieg on his handling of the Department of Transportation.

00:10:13.000 The FAA, which is overseen by Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

00:10:19.000 A real winner.

00:10:20.000 That guy's a real winner.

00:10:21.000 Do you know how badly everything's run since he's run the Department of Transportation?

00:10:25.000 He's a disaster.

00:10:28.000 He was a disaster as a mayor. 0.97

00:10:30.000 He ran his city into the ground, and he's a disaster now. 1.00

00:10:34.000 He's just got a good line of bullshit. 0.99

00:10:37.000 The Department of Transportation, his government agency charged with regulating civil aviation. 0.99

00:10:43.000 Well, he runs it.

00:10:45.000 45,000 people and he's run it right into the ground with his diversity. 1.00

00:10:51.000 Well, he is not wrong about any of that.

00:10:53.000 That is for certain.

00:10:54.000 Well, the president was asked, well, how do you know this had anything to do with DEI? And here was the president of the United States answering that question.

00:11:02.000 On DEI and the claims that you've made, are you saying this crash was somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring?

00:11:09.000 And what evidence have you seen to support these claims?

00:11:12.000 It just could have been.

00:11:13.000 We have a high standard.

00:11:15.000 We've had a much higher standard than anybody else.

00:11:18.000 And there are things where you have to go by brainpower.

00:11:21.000 You have to go by psychological quality.

00:11:25.000 And psychological quality is a very important element of it.

00:11:29.000 These are various, very powerful tests that we put to use, and they were terminated by Biden.

00:11:33.000 And Biden went by a standard that's the exact opposite.

00:11:37.000 So we don't know, but we do know that you had two planes at the same level.

00:11:41.000 You had a helicopter and a plane.

00:11:43.000 That shouldn't have happened.

00:11:45.000 And we'll see.

00:11:46.000 We're going to look into that, and we're going to see.

00:11:49.000 Certainly for an air traffic controller, we want the brightest, the smartest, the sharpest.

00:11:54.000 We want somebody that's psychologically superior, and that's what we're going to have.

00:12:01.000 As Steve Hilton points out, Pete Buttigieg's FAA got a scathing Inspector General report just in June of 2023. Quote, 77% of critical facilities are staffed below threshold.

00:12:11.000 Quote, lacks a plan to address staffing challenges, posing a risk to continuity of air traffic operations.

00:12:16.000 Quote, FAA cannot ensure it will successfully train enough controllers in the short term.

00:12:21.000 So, again, the details are still emerging.

00:12:23.000 We don't know exactly what led to this crash.

00:12:26.000 There is a lot of heartburn on the left because Trump is suggesting that DEI had something to do with this.

00:12:32.000 Unfortunately, this is the way that politics now operates.

00:12:35.000 And I can't name the number of times that Joe Biden came forth after some sort of school shooting before any of the evidence was available to discuss how gun control was obviously the solution.

00:12:43.000 He didn't have to wait.

00:12:45.000 For where the gun came from, or who had sold it, or who operated it, or what the psychological status of the person who actually did the shooting was, any of that, you just come forth and immediately declare that his sort of all-purpose solution was the one in question.

00:12:57.000 Now, here is the thing. 1.00

00:12:58.000 It is very clear that the FAA is run like shit. 1.00

00:13:01.000 That is for sure. 1.00

00:13:02.000 The FAA has been run along DEI lines for a very long time.

00:13:05.000 And regardless as to whether this crash was a result of DEI or whether it wasn't a result of DEI, there is a reason why the blowback is coming in that form.

00:13:15.000 President Trump was pushed on this by Caitlin Collins of CNN, and he didn't have a lot of time for it.

00:13:23.000 We don't even yet know the names of the 67 people who were killed.

00:13:26.000 And you are blaming Democrats and DEI policies and air traffic control and seemingly the member of the U.S. military who was flying that Black Hawk helicopter.

00:13:35.000 Don't you think you're getting ahead of the investigation right now?

00:13:37.000 No, I don't think so at all.

00:13:39.000 I don't think we're the names of the people.

00:13:40.000 You mean the names of the people that are on the plane?

00:13:44.000 You think that's going to make a difference?

00:13:46.000 They are a group of people that have lost their lives.

00:13:50.000 If you want a list of the names, we can...

00:13:51.000 We'll be giving that very soon.

00:13:53.000 We're in coordination with American Airlines.

00:13:56.000 We're in coordination very strongly, obviously, with the military.

00:13:59.000 But I think that's not a very smart question.

00:14:02.000 I'm surprised coming from you.

00:14:04.000 Well, then Trump was asked a smarter question by our own Mary Margaret Olihan, which was, it seems kind of important, given the fact that so many of these agents, their short staffs, actually get confirmed the nominees.

00:14:14.000 Like, just confirm the nominees.

00:14:15.000 Here's President Trump on that.

00:14:17.000 Mr. President, is it helpful to have your Secretary of Transportation confirmed, and does this intensify your interest in getting other nominees confirmed quickly?

00:14:26.000 Is it helpful to have your Secretary of Transportation confirmed, and does this intensify your interest in getting other nominees confirmed quickly as well?

00:14:33.000 Well, sure.

00:14:33.000 We want fast confirmations.

00:14:35.000 And the Democrats, as you know, are doing everything they can to delay them.

00:14:39.000 They've taken too long.

00:14:42.000 We're struggling to get very good people that everybody knows are going to be confirmed.

00:14:47.000 But we're struggling to get them out faster.

00:14:50.000 We want them out faster.

00:14:51.000 It's a good question, actually.

00:14:54.000 We've been pushing Sean.

00:14:56.000 Everyone knows Sean for a long time.

00:14:58.000 He got many, many Democrat votes, but they want to take as long as they can.

00:15:02.000 And they asked questions like some of the questions that Peter would ask that were totally irrelevant and not very good questions.

00:15:09.000 But they want to just keep it going.

00:15:11.000 They want to keep it going as long as possible.

00:15:12.000 I was very honored, actually, that you got so many Democrat votes.

00:15:16.000 That was really good.

00:15:18.000 Well, I mean, he's not wrong about that.

00:15:23.000 Well, J.D. Vance, the Vice President of the United States, he was also talking about air traffic control and DEI standards.

00:15:28.000 Here's what the Vice President of the United States had to say.

00:15:31.000 Something the president said that I think bears reemphasizing, which is that when you don't have the best standards in who you're hiring, it means, on the one hand, you're not getting the best people in government, but on the other hand, it puts stresses on the people who are already there.

00:15:46.000 And I think that is a core part of what President Trump is going to bring and has already brought to Washington, D.C., is we want to hire the best people because we want the best people at air traffic control.

00:15:57.000 And we want to make sure we have enough people at air traffic control who are actually competent to do the job.

00:16:02.000 If you go back to just some of the headlines over the past 10 years, you have many hundreds of people suing the government because they would like to be air traffic controllers, but they were turned away because of the color of their skin.

00:16:12.000 That policy ends under Donald Trump's leadership because safety is the first priority of our aviation industry.

00:16:19.000 Thank you, Mr. President.

00:16:21.000 Sean Duffy, who is the new Transportation Secretary, he pointed out yesterday that this entire situation was indeed preventable.

00:16:27.000 Here he was.

00:16:28.000 We are going to wait for all the information to come in from this vantage point, but to back up what the president said, what I've seen so far, do I think this was preventable?

00:16:39.000 Absolutely.

00:16:41.000 So, we'll have to see again what exactly is the cause of this particular plane crash.

00:16:47.000 It is certainly the case that the procedures have to change, which is why yesterday President Trump took executive action on aviation DEI, signing a memorandum to end DEI practices in the aviation sector and to assess aviation safety, as well as an executive order to appoint a new head of the FAA.

00:17:02.000 That is according to The Hill.

00:17:04.000 Trump's new executive actions come in the wake of that deadly midair collision near Ronald Reagan National Airport.

00:17:09.000 The memorandum on DEI orders for newly minted Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and newly appointed acting FAA Commissioner Christopher Rochelow to ensure the undue practices that may have been in place during the Biden administration around hiring.

00:17:16.000 to ensure they undo practices that may have been in place during the Biden administration around hiring.

00:17:21.000 He said, in other words, competence.

00:17:23.000 So President Trump had to say.

00:17:24.000 So, you know, those procedures do have to change regardless of exactly what led to this crash.

00:17:28.000 And again, we'll bring you all the information as it emerges on what did lead to the crash, what all the procedures were, who did what wrong, because obviously something went very, very wrong.

00:17:38.000 Meanwhile, speaking of President Trump's nominees, three of them were on the Hill yesterday in contentious hearings.

00:17:43.000 All three of them had significantly contentious hearings.

00:17:46.000 RFK Jr.'s hearings continued yesterday.

00:17:49.000 And those hearings, again, went pretty well for RFK Jr.

00:17:53.000 There's one particular exchange that he had with Bernie Sanders in which Sanders was going after RFK Jr.

00:17:58.000 And RFK Jr. was like, listen, you've been taking a lot of pharma money, I've noticed. 0.94

00:18:01.000 *Fucked* By the way, Bernie, you know, the problem of corruption is not just in the federal agencies. 0.96

00:18:10.000 It's in Congress, too. 0.99

00:18:12.000 Almost all the members of this panel are accepting, including yourself, are accepting millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and protecting their interests.

00:18:23.000 I thought that that would come.

00:18:26.000 I ran for president like you.

00:18:28.000 I got millions and millions of contributions.

00:18:31.000 They did not come from the executives, not one nickel of PAC money from the pharmaceutical industry.

00:18:37.000 They came from workers. 1.00

00:18:40.000 In 2020, you were the single largest receiver of pharmaceutical money.

00:18:46.000 From workers all over this country.

00:18:49.000 Workers, if not a nickel from corporate tax.

00:18:53.000 You were the single largest except for pharmaceutical dollars.

00:18:56.000 No, from workers in the industry.

00:18:58.000 1.5 million.

00:19:01.000 Honestly, these hearings are so non-illuminating.

00:19:04.000 They're basically just an opportunity for various senators to grandstand. 0.82

00:19:07.000 We'll get to more on this in just a moment.

00:19:09.000 First, this country was founded on freedom.

00:19:11.000 Freedom from a country that forced us to buy overpriced tea, then tried blockading us. 1.00

00:19:14.000 We dumped their stupid tea into the ocean. 1.00

00:19:16.000 How'd that work out for you, Great Britain? 1.00

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00:21:16.000 Well, RFK Jr. was pushed on his theories about vaccines, particularly his theory that vaccines and autism are linked.

00:21:23.000 Again, the evidence suggests that autism and vaccination are not, in fact, linked.

00:21:28.000 And many of the sort of...

00:21:30.000 Fact that RFK Jr. will attempt to marshal with regard to such a linkage has to do with a type of mercury that is no longer found in vaccines at all.

00:21:39.000 It stopped being used decades ago.

00:21:41.000 In any case, the studies that link autism with vaccines have been debunked, at least the major one that originally suggested it, was completely withdrawn eventually.

00:21:50.000 Bernie Sanders questioned RFK Jr. about this.

00:21:53.000 There have been, as I understand it, dozens of studies done all over the world.

00:22:00.000 That make it very clear that vaccines do not cause autism.

00:22:05.000 Now, you just said, if I heard correctly, well, if the evidence is there.

00:22:09.000 The evidence is there.

00:22:12.000 That's it.

00:22:14.000 Vaccines do not cause autism.

00:22:18.000 Do you agree with that?

00:22:20.000 As I said, I'm not going to go into HHS with any preordained...

00:22:24.000 I asked you a simple question, Bobby.

00:22:27.000 Studies all over the world say it does not.

00:22:29.000 What do you think?

00:22:30.000 Senator, if you show me those studies, I will absolutely, as I promised to Chairman Cassidy, I will apologize.

00:22:37.000 That is a very troubling response because the studies are there.

00:22:42.000 Your job must have looked at those studies as an applicant for this job.

00:22:46.000 Now, the reason this could actually be a problem for RFK Jr., for Bobby Kennedy, is not because of Bernie Sanders.

00:22:52.000 Bernie was going to vote against RFK Jr. anyway because he's a Trump nominee.

00:22:55.000 This could be a problem.

00:22:56.000 for Senator Bill Cassidy, who's a physician and chairman of the committee.

00:23:00.000 And he points out that a 2014 meta-analysis of 1.2 million children concluded no link between autism and vaccines.

00:23:06.000 And Kennedy then responded, you show me those scientific studies, you and I can meet about it.

00:23:10.000 There are other studies as well.

00:23:10.000 I'd love to show those to you.

00:23:12.000 Cassidy was troubled by that because he suggested, well, I mean, the overwhelming evidence is what the overwhelming evidence is.

00:23:18.000 Cassidy showed, can a 71-year-old man who spent decades criticizing vaccines, who's financially vested in finding fault with vaccines, can he change his attitudes and approach now that he'll have the most important position influencing vaccine policy in the United States?

00:23:29.000 I've got to figure that out for my vote.

00:23:30.000 And that is, in fact, a fair question from Senator Cassidy.

00:23:33.000 That is not, in fact, a crazy question or an oppositional question.

00:23:37.000 Cassidy is a strong supporter of President Trump.

00:23:40.000 And, you know, Kirin lies one of the sort of issues with some of the Trump nominees.

00:23:44.000 And again.

00:23:44.000 I support Bobby Kennedy for HHS. One of the problems is there are vulnerabilities for some of these nominees and many of the things that they've said in the past that could cause the Senate to use its advice and consent procedures to find fault with the nominees.

00:23:56.000 For example, Tim Kaine, Democrat senator from Virginia, long forgotten, former vice presidential candidate for Hillary Clinton, he asked Bobby Kennedy about conspiracy theories about 9-11.

00:24:07.000 Because you say, you go on to say, I won't take sides.

00:24:13.000 As president, I won't take sides on 9-11.

00:24:19.000 Wow.

00:24:21.000 I won't take sides on 9-11.

00:24:24.000 Let me ask you this.

00:24:25.000 As a general matter, do you find it hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't?

00:24:35.000 Is that kind of a general deficit that you find in your own analytical abilities?

00:24:43.000 13 years old.

00:24:45.000 He said, people in authority lie.

00:24:48.000 And that the job of a citizen in every democracy is to maintain a fierce skepticism for government authority.

00:24:58.000 And you're an authority.

00:25:00.000 And you're an authority, but you wouldn't take sides on 9-11 and you're admitting...

00:25:05.000 You know, I have a hard time telling what is an conspiracy theory and what isn't.

00:25:09.000 Senator, I haven't investigated it.

00:25:11.000 If the things that I investigate I take sides on, people are allowed to hold that opinion.

00:25:17.000 I'm not going to tell them they're crazy for holding that opinion.

00:25:19.000 I'm going to say, what is your evidence?

00:25:21.000 And if I hear the evidence, I'm going to say, that doesn't make any sense.

00:25:25.000 So you won't take sides on 9-11.

00:25:27.000 Wow.

00:25:29.000 Okay, so, again, I think Bobby Kennedy gets confirmed, but...

00:25:34.000 There is a difference between, let's say, the less controversial nominees on the Republican side and the more controversial nominees.

00:25:40.000 Now, that distinction is not always clear from the Democratic reaction to that nominee.

00:25:44.000 So let me give you a couple of examples.

00:25:45.000 There are two other Trump nominees who are up in the hearings yesterday.

00:25:49.000 One was Tulsi Gabbard, who is up for the position of Director of National Intelligence.

00:25:52.000 And the other was Kash Patel.

00:25:54.000 Kash Patel is up for the head of the FBI. Kash Patel is wildly controversial on the left because Kash Patel...

00:26:01.000 Has been a Trump supporter for a long time.

00:26:04.000 And he has made comments around January 6th that people on the left don't particularly like.

00:26:11.000 But Kash Patel is wildly qualified.

00:26:14.000 Like super well qualified.

00:26:15.000 And in fact, in his hearing, just ran circles around Democrats over and over and over again.

00:26:22.000 He is obviously extraordinarily intelligent.

00:26:24.000 He's very combative.

00:26:26.000 He was not willing to take any prisoners in this hearing.

00:26:30.000 In this hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, they tried to go after him about past comments, praising people who were there January 6th of 2021, or his promise to go after current and former DOJ and FBI officials that he put on a list of corrupt actors.

00:26:44.000 But again, the reason he's being put in this position is to clear out the FBI of any of those corrupt actors.

00:26:50.000 So here was Kash Patel in his opening statement saying due process matters.

00:26:55.000 For the first eight years after law school, I served as a public defender.

00:26:59.000 First for Miami-Dade County and later for the Southern District of Florida.

00:27:03.000 During that time, I represented some pretty awful human beings charged with some pretty heinous crimes.

00:27:10.000 But what I learned there was the core value that has been enshrined in me since.

00:27:14.000 That due process must be provided without bias to all Americans.

00:27:20.000 And if we cannot provide due process to the worst, then there can be no due process for anyone.

00:27:26.000 And our constitutional republic fails.

00:27:30.000 Now again, all of that should be wildly uncontroversial and Patel points out that he's been a victim of weaponized government, which of course is true.

00:27:38.000 Senator, this may be one of the scenarios that most uniquely qualifies me to take command at the FBI. Having been the victim of government overreach and a weaponized system of justice and law enforcement.

00:27:52.000 I know what it feels like to have the full weight of the United States government barreling down on you.

00:27:58.000 And as the Biden Inspector General determined those activities by the FBI and DOJ were wholly improper and not predicated upon law and facts, I will ensure, if confirmed, that no American is subjected to that kind of torment, to that kind of cost, financially and personally.

00:28:17.000 And most importantly, I will make sure that no American is subjected to death threats like I was and subjected to moving their residences like I was because of government overreach, because of leaks of information about my personal status.

00:28:32.000 If confirmed as FBI Director, Mr. Chairman, you have my commitment that no one in this country will feel that pain.

00:28:39.000 So Patel was tapped in 2017 by then House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes to join the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to investigate the origins of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation.

00:28:50.000 That was the Trump-Russia investigation.

00:28:52.000 And in the process of that happening, he himself was dragged into Crossfire Hurricane.

00:29:00.000 He himself, his records were secretly subpoenaed, apparently, in this process.

00:29:07.000 And so he was targeted.

00:29:09.000 And that is what he refers to when he says he doesn't want that to happen to anybody else.

00:29:15.000 Again, Grassley, Senator Chuck Grassley, who's amazing, he's 91 years old and he is still with it.

00:29:20.000 He says, this has affected you personally, you along with even members of my staff, are the victims of FBI overreach when they secretly subpoenaed your records during the investigation into Crossfire Hurricane.

00:29:29.000 Which, of course, is right.

00:29:32.000 Now, Kash Patel vowed that he would also find out who inside the intelligence community...

00:29:36.000 Was targeting parents during, for example, the assault on parents' rights in Virginia in the run-up to the 2020 elections?

00:29:47.000 Will you find out who was involved in this policy within the FBI? Who agreed with it?

00:29:54.000 Who implemented it?

00:29:55.000 Who encouraged it?

00:29:56.000 Will you find out that, Mr. Patel?

00:29:58.000 Will you do an internal investigation?

00:30:01.000 And will you make clear that those who supported this policy are appropriately disciplined?

00:30:04.000 And will you make clear that the FBI will never do something like this again?

00:30:08.000 If confirmed in pursuant to your congressional request, absolutely, Senator.

00:30:12.000 Thank you.

00:30:14.000 And there, of course, he's talking about the targeting of Loudoun County parents in 2021 and all the rest of it.

00:30:19.000 Now, Democrats, of course, were very upset with Kash Patel.

00:30:22.000 But here's the thing.

00:30:22.000 Kash Patel is really good at this.

00:30:23.000 He's really good at this.

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00:32:31.000 And Kash Patel, again, is incredibly smart.

00:32:33.000 And here he was.

00:32:34.000 Amy Klobuchar was trying to get him on a comment that he made about closing FBI headquarters and instead building a monument to FBI overreach, which of course is a bit of rhetoric.

00:32:45.000 And she's trying to get him on this.

00:32:46.000 And Kash Patel is just not going to play.

00:32:48.000 He's just not going to play.

00:32:51.000 Before I call on Senator Lee, could he just answer the question if he said that the FBI headquarters where they investigate cybercrime and terrorism should be shut down and open as a deep state, as a museum?

00:33:03.000 Did he say that the headquarters should be shut down?

00:33:06.000 I deserve an answer to that question.

00:33:08.000 He is asking to be head of the FBI, and he said that their headquarters should be shut down.

00:33:14.000 Mr. Chair, parliamentary inquiry.

00:33:15.000 You got anything you want to say, Mr. Patel, before I go on to Senator Lee?

00:33:20.000 Simply this.

00:33:21.000 If the best attacks on me are going to be false accusations and grotesque mischaracterizations, the only thing this body is doing is defeating the credibility of the men and women at the FBI. I stood with them here in this country.

00:33:33.000 In every theater of war we have, I was on the ground in service of this nation and any.

00:33:39.000 Accusations leveled against me that I would somehow put political bias before the Constitution are grotesquely unfair.

00:33:46.000 And I will have you reminded that I have been endorsed by over 300,000 law enforcement officers to become the next director of the FBI. Let's ask them.

00:33:55.000 Mr. Chairman, I am quoting his own words from September of 2024. It is his own words.

00:34:03.000 It is not some conspiracy.

00:34:05.000 It is what Mr. Patel actually said himself.

00:34:09.000 Facts matter.

00:34:11.000 You forget that you had three minutes in the next round to say what you just said.

00:34:15.000 Okay, I'll say them again.

00:34:19.000 Again, this is not a great look for Amy Klobuchar. 0.98

00:34:22.000 It also is not a good look for Sheldon Whitehouse, who is, again, one of the dumber members of the United States Senate. 0.80

00:34:28.000 He went after Kash Patel, and it didn't go well for him either.

00:34:33.000 The only thing that will matter if I'm confirmed as a director of the FBI is a de-weaponized, de-politicized system of law enforcement completely devoted to rigorous obedience of the Constitution and a singular standard of justice.

00:34:50.000 Again, correct.

00:34:52.000 Patel also did something smart.

00:34:55.000 He was asked by Democratic senators about President Trump's pardons of some of the people who attack cops on January 6th.

00:35:01.000 And Patel, who is in fact like a Trump loyalist to Trump loyalist, totally loyal to the MAGA agenda for sure.

00:35:07.000 Cash Patel said, listen, if it were me, I wouldn't have done it.

00:35:09.000 I don't think that we should pardon people who attack cops.

00:35:13.000 As we discussed in our private meeting, Senator, I have always rejected any violence against law enforcement, and I have, including in that group, specifically addressed any violence against law enforcement on January 6th, and I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of specifically addressed any violence against law enforcement on January 6th, and I do not agree with the commutation

00:35:35.000 So do you think that America is safer because these 1,600 people have been given an opportunity to come out of serving their sentences and live in our communities again?

00:35:46.000 Senator, I have not looked at all 1,600 individual cases.

00:35:52.000 I have always advocated for imprisoning those that cause harm to our law enforcement and civilian communities.

00:36:01.000 So, again, Kash Patel, I think, really, really outshone yesterday.

00:36:07.000 I thought he was terrific yesterday in his Senate Judiciary hearing.

00:36:10.000 Meanwhile, Tulsi Gabbard, of course, is the other major controversial nominees.

00:36:14.000 There were three controversial nominees.

00:36:16.000 RFK, I thought, performed admirably, although there are still open questions about his positions on everything from vaccines to abortion.

00:36:22.000 I thought that Kash Patel was just absolutely terrific yesterday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

00:36:27.000 Tulsi Gabbard had some ups and she had some downs. 1.00

00:36:30.000 So Tulsi is, of course, the nominee to head the Directorate of National Intelligence, which is basically the oversight body for the CIA and the FBI. It's more of a ceremonial position in many ways, but she does sort of determine what intelligence hits the president's desk, although the truth is that President Trump can get intelligence from wherever he wants.

00:36:47.000 He's sort of famous for having various back channels inside his own administration.

00:36:51.000 One of the reasons that he nominated Tulsi Gabbard is, of course, because she's been a longtime opponent of the sort of overweening surveillance state.

00:36:57.000 Here she was talking about that yesterday.

00:37:00.000 Before I close, I want to warn the American people who are watching at home.

00:37:04.000 You may hear lies and smears in this hearing that will challenge my loyalty to and my love for our country.

00:37:11.000 Those who oppose my nomination imply that I am loyal to something or someone other than God, my own conscience, and the Constitution of the United States.

00:37:23.000 Accusing me of being Trump's puppet, Putin's puppet, Assad's puppet, a guru's puppet, Modi's puppet, not recognizing the absurdity of simultaneously being the puppet of five different puppet masters.

00:37:37.000 The same tactic was used against President Trump and failed.

00:37:43.000 The American people elected President Trump with a decisive victory and mandate for change.

00:37:49.000 The fact is what truly unsettles my political opponents is I refuse to be their puppet.

00:37:55.000 Now, again, I think that this is a very smart play by Tulsi.

00:38:01.000 Tulsi is incredibly bright, obviously.

00:38:03.000 A former congresswoman from Hawaii and, of course, a former military officer as well.

00:38:08.000 And there are many things that she would do as head of the DNI that I think would be absolutely terrific.

00:38:15.000 I mean, one of the things that she did that was really excellent yesterday is she lists examples of weaponization of the intelligence agencies, which is a major issue.

00:38:22.000 Title I of FISA was used illegally to obtain a warrant to spy on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.

00:38:33.000 Biden campaign advisor Tony Blinken was the impetus for the 51 former senior intelligence officials letter dismissing Hunter Biden's laptop as disinformation specifically to help Biden win the election.

00:38:48.000 Former DNI James Clapper lied to this committee in 2013, denying the existence of programs that facilitated the mass collection of millions of Americans' phone and Internet records, yet was never held accountable.

00:39:02.000 Under John Brennan's leadership, the CIA abused its power to spy on Congress, to dodge oversight, lied about doing it until he was caught, and yet has never been held responsible.

00:39:13.000 Under Biden, the FBI abused its power for political reasons to try to surveil Catholics who attend traditional Latin Mass, labeling them as quote-unquote radical traditionalist Catholics.

00:39:26.000 Personally, just 24 hours after I criticized Kamala Harris and her nomination, I was placed on a secret domestic terror watch list called Quiet Skies.

00:39:35.000 Sadly, there are more examples.

00:39:37.000 The bottom line is this.

00:39:39.000 This must end.

00:39:42.000 Now, again, she's right about all of this.

00:39:44.000 Now, she did make trouble for herself in this hearing.

00:39:47.000 Again, sort of like RFK answering questions on vaccines.

00:39:50.000 The reality is whoever Trump nominates for these positions is going to do the work of President Trump, which is the reason why I support the nominations.

00:39:56.000 I think that Chelsea Gabbard is going to work for President Trump. 1.00

00:39:59.000 Bobby Kennedy is going to work for President Trump.

00:40:01.000 So I have qualms about many of Bobby's positions on some of these issues, but in the end, he's working for Trump, which means that Trump's agenda is going to be the one that pushes forward or Trump will fire him.

00:40:10.000 The same thing is going to be true of Tulsi Gabbard.

00:40:12.000 That doesn't mean that in the Senate advice and consent procedures and protocols, they don't have to go through some of these questions.

00:40:17.000 So, we'll get to, in a moment, Tulsi Gabbard running to some headwinds inside her Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. 0.99

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00:40:49.000 Well, as I say, Tulsi Gabbard, she's in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. 1.00

00:40:52.000 She did some amazing things yesterday that were really pretty terrific.

00:40:56.000 And she had a bit of a problem when it came to Edward Snowden.

00:40:59.000 So, Edward Snowden, of course, one of the most famous leakers slash whistleblowers slash traitors in American history.

00:41:05.000 One of the open questions for those who are very skeptical of our intelligence services for a very long time is whether Edward Snowden was a traitor.

00:41:11.000 Now, as I've said since literally the very beginning with regard to Edward Snowden, who revealed all sorts of information on the extent to which the American intelligence apparatus was gathering metadata on American citizens and such.

00:41:26.000 As I've said from the beginning, two things can be true at once.

00:41:28.000 One. 0.70

00:41:29.000 The information that we found out from Edward Snowden is really important for the American public to know, and two, Edward Snowden is a traitor.

00:41:34.000 Both of those things are true.

00:41:35.000 Edward Snowden did not take any of the protocols and procedures necessary in order to be protected as a whistleblower.

00:41:40.000 That is not me.

00:41:41.000 That's Devin Nunes.

00:41:42.000 So, as we mentioned, Kash Patel used to work for Devin Nunes.

00:41:46.000 Devin Nunes is a very skeptical person when it comes to the intelligence apparatus because he was actually targeted by, well, in September of 2016, he presided over a report on Edward Snowden that found, without a doubt, That Snowden had in fact committed treason.

00:42:01.000 That Snowden did not do any of the things that would be necessary in order to qualify as a whistleblower.

00:42:06.000 So there are actual procedures that are set up as a whistleblower that you can go through in order to ensure that you receive legal protection.

00:42:13.000 Those procedures are there for a reason.

00:42:15.000 They are there in order to prevent, for example, the dissemination of information that is incredibly damaging to American sources of information abroad, for example, or that uncovers information to America's enemies that ought not be uncovered.

00:42:29.000 The Intelligence Committee found at the time that Snowden caused tremendous damage to national security, and the vast majority of the documents he stole have nothing to do with the programs impacting individual privacy interests.

00:42:38.000 They instead pertained to military defense and intelligence programs of great interest to America's adversaries.

00:42:44.000 Snowden insists he has not shared the full cache of 1.5 million classified documents with anybody, but in June 2016, the deputy chairman of Russia's Parliament's Defense and Security Committee publicly conceded that Snowden did share intelligence with his government.

00:42:59.000 The full scope of the damage inflicted by Snowden remains unknown.

00:43:01.000 Again, this is according to the Republican House Intelligence Committee reporting on Snowden back in 2016. Snowden, according to this report, was not a whistleblower.

00:43:09.000 Under the law, publicly revealing classified information does not qualify somebody as a whistleblower.

00:43:14.000 Disclosing classified information that shows fraud, waste, abuse, or other illegal activity to the appropriate law enforcement or oversight personnel, including to Congress, makes somebody a whistleblower and affords them critical protections.

00:43:24.000 Contrary to public claims, As Snowden notified numerous NSA officials about what he believed to be illegal intelligence collection, the committee found zero evidence Snowden took any official effort to express concern about U.S. intelligence activities to any oversight officials within the U.S. government, despite numerous avenues for him to do so.

00:43:41.000 Snowden was aware of these avenues.

00:43:43.000 despite snowden's later public claim he would have faced retribution for voicing concerns about activities the committee found laws and regulations in effect at the time of snowden's actions afforded him protections nor did snowden remain in the u.s to face the legal consequences of his actions contrary to the tradition of civil disobedience he professed to embrace instead he fled to china and then to russia to gather the files he took with him when he left the country for hong kong snowden infringed on the privacy of thousands of government employees and contractors

00:44:07.000 he obtained his colleagues security credentials through misleading means abused his access as a systems administrator and removed the personally identifiable identifiable information of thousands of ic employees and contractors from hong kong he then went to russia where he remained a guest of the kremlin Thank you.

00:44:23.000 Two weeks before Snowden began those mass downloads, he was reprimanded after engaging in a workplace spat with NSA managers.

00:44:31.000 The committee found that Snowden was and remains a serial exaggerator and fabricator.

00:44:35.000 So, again, the pretty obvious implication here is that, yeah, again, you may like to know, and I like to know, some of the stuff that Snowden uncovered.

00:44:44.000 However, that is not the extent of what he uncovered, and that's not the extent of what he passed on to Russian intelligence services.

00:44:49.000 So, why is this a problem?

00:44:51.000 Well, because Tulsi Gabbard was asked, A bunch of separate times whether Snowden was in fact a traitor.

00:44:56.000 And she could have said the same thing that I just said, which is Edward Snowden violated all laws with regard to whistleblowing.

00:45:02.000 Edward Snowden turned over information to America's enemies that were in violation of American law.

00:45:08.000 By the technical definition, that's an act of treason.

00:45:11.000 With that said, am I glad that we know about many of the things that Edward Snowden uncovered?

00:45:15.000 Yes, because there are excesses in the intelligence community. 0.87

00:45:17.000 She could have said that.

00:45:18.000 She didn't.

00:45:19.000 Michael Bennett of Colorado pushed her on this a lot.

00:45:20.000 Again, this is the sort of thing.

00:45:22.000 That is going to drive senators away from her if they wish not to vote for Tulsi Gabbard. 1.00

00:45:26.000 So let me ask you again.

00:45:28.000 Do you believe, as the chairman of this committee believes, as the vast majority of members of our intelligence agencies believe, that Edward Snowden was a traitor to the United States of America?

00:45:42.000 Senator, if confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, I will work with you to make sure that there is not another Snowden-like league.

00:45:50.000 This is not a moment for social media.

00:45:51.000 It's not a moment to propagate theories, conspiracy theories, or attacks on journalism in the United States.

00:46:00.000 This is when you need to answer the questions of the people whose votes you're asking for to be confirmed as the...

00:46:10.000 Chief intelligence officer of this nation.

00:46:14.000 Is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?

00:46:20.000 That is not a hard question to answer when the stakes are this high.

00:46:27.000 Senator, as someone who has served in your reform...

00:46:30.000 Your answer, yes or no, is Edward Snowden a traitor to the United States of America?

00:46:37.000 As someone who has worn our uniform in combat, I understand how critical our national security is.

00:46:45.000 Apparently you don't.

00:46:48.000 In 2020, she had, in fact, pushed a resolution alongside Representative Matt Gaetz, calling for the feds to completely drop charges against Snowden, even though, again, the charges were not just with regard to the stuff that we all wish that we knew and are glad that Snowden actually talked about.

00:47:00.000 They're with regard to all the other stuff that Snowden certainly should not have revealed to America's enemies.

00:47:05.000 Again, this is not to say that Tulsi should not be confirmed.

00:47:07.000 If I were on the committee, I'd vote to confirm her.

00:47:09.000 Why?

00:47:09.000 Because she's going to be doing the work of President Trump.

00:47:11.000 And again, I think that the president is generally entitled to his nominees.

00:47:15.000 But if you are a Republican senator and you're a thing of not voting for Tulsi, this is going to give you enough of a hook to not vote for Tulsi Gabbard, presumably.

00:47:23.000 Now, with that said, many of the people who are the most hawkish on the Senate Intelligence Committee are defenders of Tulsi Gabbard.

00:47:27.000 That includes Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

00:47:30.000 Here he was, slapping down accusations that Tulsi is a Russian agent, which of course she's not.

00:47:35.000 I'm dismayed by the attacks on Miss Gabbard's patriotism and her loyalty to our country.

00:47:43.000 For instance, Hillary Clinton has smeared Miss Gabbard, calling her an asset of a foreign nation. 0.83

00:47:51.000 Let me remind everyone that Miss Gabbard has served in our army for more than two decades.

00:47:56.000 She has multiple combat tours, and she still wears the uniform to this day.

00:48:04.000 She has undergone five FBI background checks.

00:48:08.000 I spent more than two hours last week reviewing the latest, putting eyes on more than 300 pages.

00:48:16.000 It's clean as a whistle.

00:48:20.000 Okay, so how are all these votes going to come down?

00:48:22.000 We don't actually know the answer to that yet.

00:48:26.000 What is clear is that obviously not all nominees are going to sail through with the same level of support.

00:48:30.000 So I think that probably all three of these nominees will be confirmed.

00:48:32.000 I think actually all three probably will be confirmed.

00:48:35.000 However, it is certainly the case that some will get fewer votes than others.

00:48:39.000 All right.

00:48:39.000 Meanwhile, the Democrats continue to swirl the drain.

00:48:43.000 I mean, it is just amazing.

00:48:44.000 So last night there was on MSNBC a candidate forum to lead the DNC. So basically everybody who wants to lead the Democratic National Committee.

00:48:53.000 The Chairman's Forum, they had this event over at MSNBC. And Jonathan Capehart asked, everyone on stage, raise your hand if you believe that Kamala Harris lost because of racism and misogyny.

00:49:06.000 Now, a normie might be like, no, she lost because she was a bad candidate. 1.00

00:49:09.000 And guess what? 0.70

00:49:10.000 If Joe Biden had been the candidate, he also would have lost, which is why they substituted the black lady for the old white man. 1.00

00:49:15.000 But nope, this is not a normal party.

00:49:17.000 You have to keep going in the intersectional direction. 0.55

00:49:19.000 You have to keep claiming the American people are sexist and racist.

00:49:22.000 So literally every person on the stage, the vast bulk of whom are white, raises their hand when asked if Kamala Harris lost because of racism and sexism.

00:49:32.000 Five minutes left in this round, so I'm going to have a show of hands.

00:49:40.000 How many of you believe that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris's defeat?

00:49:51.000 Okay.

00:49:53.000 So, that's good.

00:49:55.000 You all pass.

00:49:58.000 I mean, Capehart, wow, wow, wow.

00:50:00.000 And that remark right there, that very last remark is the one that matters, right?

00:50:04.000 Very good, you all pass.

00:50:05.000 That's the litmus test.

00:50:06.000 The litmus test for Democrats, always and forever, is if we lose, it's because the American public are racist and sexist.

00:50:13.000 Keep doing this, guys.

00:50:15.000 If that's your litmus test, seriously, keep doing it.

00:50:17.000 Meanwhile...

00:50:18.000 Reality keeps clocking the DEI movement directly in the head.

00:50:22.000 I have to say, the downfall of Ibram X. Kendi is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

00:50:27.000 So Ibram X. Kendi is one of the great grifters in all of human history. 0.96

00:50:31.000 He wrote this bestseller called How to Be an Anti-Racist, which is legitimately one of the stupidest things ever written. 0.98

00:50:36.000 The man cannot even define the word racism. 0.99

00:50:38.000 He was asked this on stage at one point, and his answer was so nonsensical as to be self-defeating.

00:50:44.000 He then was given $10 million.

00:50:47.000 to found an institution at Boston University called the Ibram X. Kendi Center on Anti-Racism, in which he was going to do research on anti-racism.

00:50:56.000 Ten million dollars later, there was zero, zero research that had emerged from the Center for Anti-Racist Research.

00:51:03.000 Boston University has now confirmed that Kendi will be departing and said the Center for Anti-Racist Research would close June 30th.

00:51:09.000 The Center and Kendi came under scrutiny in 2023 for alleged financial mismanagement.

00:51:14.000 Gloria Waters, the university's provost and chief academic officer, said, quote, We thank Dr. Kendi and the center's staff and affiliated faculty for their contributions in advancing scholarship, teaching, and policymaking.

00:51:24.000 The university wishes Dr. Kendi well on his next chapter.

00:51:30.000 Well, he then promptly fell into a featherbed over at Howard University, which, of course, is the same university, a historically black college university, that accepted the execrable Nicole Hannah-Jones. 0.94

00:51:42.000 When she fell out of favor at the University of North Carolina.

00:51:45.000 So Kendi is going to start at Howard this summer as a history professor and director of the tentatively named Howard University Institute for Advanced Research, who will also bring with him The Emancipator, a digital magazine focused on racial inequity that was founded with the Boston Globe, but has since gone independent.

00:52:01.000 And nobody has ever seen, heard from, read anything remotely like that.

00:52:07.000 So, um, bye.

00:52:09.000 I just, you know what?

00:52:11.000 Good for him. 0.98

00:52:11.000 Honestly, if you're a grifter and you can take all of these pathetic fools who believe that affirmative action and racial consciousness and all this ought to be at the top of the list of American priorities as opposed to being counterproductive and truly racist in their essence, if you can take all those people for a ride, more power to you, Ibram. 0.98

00:52:28.000 And good luck over at Howard University. 0.97

00:52:31.000 Speaking of the demise of DEI, joining us on the line is Christopher Ruffo.

00:52:35.000 There is no activist who's had more impact on America in terms of...

00:52:43.000 Chris, I have to say, you know, as probably the most successful activist of our generation in terms of actually fostering political change in places like Florida on DEI or pushing government cuts, what do you make of the Trump administration really, I would say, taking your advice, moving fast and breaking things here?

00:53:01.000 Yeah, it's been a spectacular week.

00:53:04.000 And, you know, we've been working on this campaign to abolish DEI, to reform higher education.

00:53:09.000 To get rid of trans ideology in America's institutions for five years. 0.98

00:53:13.000 And it feels like a point of culmination.

00:53:16.000 And I spent the interim, after the president's electoral victory, before he took office, trying to talk to people, trying to get organized, trying to set the stage for reform.

00:53:26.000 And they've taken everything to the next level.

00:53:30.000 I mean, the sheer scope and scale of what the president has done and what his cabinet members have done.

00:53:36.000 This is a totally different administration than Trump 1.0.

00:53:40.000 It's probably the most effective first week of a presidency in my lifetime.

00:53:44.000 And I know for a fact that there's more to come.

00:53:47.000 So, Chris, when we look at the stuff that they are doing right now...

00:53:50.000 Executive orders can be done and undone, but some of the things that they are doing right now, ripping out, for example, affirmative action by the roots, ripping out DEI. By the way, this has been a longtime crusade of yours.

00:54:00.000 Obviously, when it comes to trans politics and trans ideology, that's something that Daily Wire, I mean, we've been fighting this thing since the initiation of our company in 2015. You say it's the culmination.

00:54:08.000 It really is, but it takes more than that.

00:54:11.000 It takes systemic know-how, and this is something where you have been really an indispensable force.

00:54:15.000 It's one thing to fight the ideology.

00:54:16.000 It's another thing to know which buttons to push to actually end it.

00:54:20.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:54:21.000 And I think this has been a learning process for me and for the right as a movement.

00:54:25.000 I think it started with President Trump's executive order banning critical race theory in late 2020. Then the shift of politics went to Florida.

00:54:34.000 Governor DeSantis really took anti-woke ideas and figured out how to turn them into anti-woke policies and administration.

00:54:41.000 And then this learning over the last four years has prepared Trump's team.

00:54:46.000 And look, these are people who have spent the last few years waiting for this day, waiting for this moment.

00:54:52.000 I was in policy planning sessions three years ago where they were talking about slicing Lyndon Johnson's Executive Order 11246 on affirmative action.

00:55:02.000 And this comes such a long way.

00:55:04.000 So we're now in the implementation phase.

00:55:06.000 And I think that this is just the beginning.

00:55:08.000 And while, yes, executive orders can come and go, I think there will be a legislative component coming in the next few months to try to entrench some of these ideas, entrench some of these policies through the legislature, through Congress, so that they're perhaps more permanent and certainly more difficult so that they're perhaps more permanent and certainly more difficult to overturn in the future.

00:55:27.000 So, Chris, one of the things that you've talked about for a long time and that obviously the administration has taken to heart is the idea that the policy is the personnel and the personnel is the policy.

00:55:35.000 And the Trump administration, one, had no idea about this.

00:55:38.000 They came in. 0.60

00:55:39.000 There are a huge number of people in the executive branch.

00:55:41.000 They just figured those are, you know, apolitical people who are just going to do their jobs when they're told to do their jobs.

00:55:46.000 Obviously, they learned the hard way that wasn't true during not only Trump 1, but also during the Biden administration when many of those people were activated against Trump even when he was out of office.

00:55:54.000 And now they are coming in and they're recognizing that a huge number of the people that they've called deep staters need to go.

00:56:01.000 And so some of the moves that they are making right now...

00:56:03.000 For example, offering a buyout to anybody who basically doesn't want to participate in the changing of the country under the sort of MAGA emblem.

00:56:09.000 These are bold and audacious moves.

00:56:11.000 What do you make of it?

00:56:12.000 Yeah, it's really good executive management.

00:56:15.000 I think that story in particular, this idea that you could send an email to all federal employees saying, respond to this email with resign in the subject line and you're gone, is something that was unimaginable, not just in Trump's first term, but really in the first term of any previous president.

00:56:31.000 And I think this is really...

00:56:32.000 The stroke of Elon Musk's influence.

00:56:35.000 This is the kind of thing that Elon Musk demonstrated when he took over Twitter.

00:56:39.000 He fired 80% of the staff and improved the product.

00:56:42.000 They're taking that ethos into the Oval Office and into the White House.

00:56:47.000 This is part of the new right coalition.

00:56:50.000 They've brought in some of the tech leaders.

00:56:53.000 There's, of course, squabbling on issues.

00:56:55.000 Tech leaders want concessions on, for example, H-1B visas.

00:56:58.000 But on the bright side of this partnership where we can all agree is A kind of ruthless administration, downsizing the government, going after the deep state, dismantling the permanent bureaucracy.

00:57:10.000 And that's something that I think really requires an audacious kind of leadership that Musk has demonstrated and now Trump has learned from and is demonstrating in government.

00:57:20.000 So, of course, one of the issues that seems to be rearing its ugly head is what people have called malicious compliance, which is people who are embedded in the executive branch who have decided that the way to, quote-unquote, apply President Trump's executive orders is to do things that earn him bad headlines.

00:57:33.000 So the best example of this that I've seen over the course of the past couple of weeks is Pete Hegsat, the new Secretary of Defense, promulgates an order to the Department of Defense to get rid of DEI in the Department of Defense, and some schmuck lower down says, well, this means that now we can no longer teach about the Tuskegee Airmen. 0.52

00:57:49.000 And Hegseth immediately says, well, obviously that's not true.

00:57:51.000 And so we are going to make sure that people are still taught about the Tuskegee Airmen.

00:57:54.000 But this is constantly a reminder that, again, the personnel are the policy.

00:57:59.000 I think one thing that people have to keep in mind is that when you actually go and you change policy in the way that Trump is doing right now, there are going to, it's a trial and error process.

00:58:07.000 Things are going to break and then you have to fix them in the same way that when Elon came in, a bunch of things broke at Twitter and then they had to get fixed on the fly.

00:58:13.000 Yeah, that's part of the process.

00:58:15.000 And I watched this up close in Florida.

00:58:18.000 As we were doing some reforms in K-12 schools and higher education in Florida, there were so many instances of malicious compliance from school administrators, school librarians, university officials.

00:58:29.000 And I think that Governor DeSantis developed a pretty strong formula.

00:58:34.000 It was to reiterate the principle, to have his rapid response communications team rebut the errors and lies and manipulations in real time, and then really just bulldoze through.

00:58:46.000 Because, you know, he told me something very interesting one time as we were reforming one of the universities.

00:58:51.000 He said, look, you're going to get a thousand negative news articles and I have your back.

00:58:57.000 This is the right thing to do.

00:58:59.000 And the voters can see through this.

00:59:00.000 You just have to stand tough.

00:59:02.000 And that's exactly what he did.

00:59:04.000 He won reelection by 20 points.

00:59:06.000 And I think his model of how to handle malicious compliance is the right one.

00:59:10.000 I would only add one small addition that I think could be relevant to the Trump administration.

00:59:15.000 Find the individuals who are responsible for malicious compliance, terminate their employment, and make them an example so that you disincentivize malicious compliance further down the line.

00:59:26.000 This is important because the federal government is so large, even a single instance of malicious compliance can deal damage, and you need to really reset the incentives so that people not only follow the executive orders, but they do so in good faith.

00:59:41.000 So, Chris, you obviously have been at the forefront of fighting things like critical race theory, which has become just poison to the public mind, or radical gender ideology, which, again, has now been sort of ripped out by the roots.

00:59:52.000 What is the next big battlefront?

00:59:54.000 Because it seems like Democrats are in retreat in a lot of areas, but they always come back.

00:59:58.000 What is the next thing that you've got your eye on?

01:00:00.000 Yeah, I think, look, I think the president has made incredible progress on DEI. He's going to be opening up investigations.

01:00:08.000 Into discriminatory DEI programs at companies, school districts, universities.

01:00:13.000 And so I think that the abolished DEI movement is in really good shape.

01:00:17.000 Where I think we can make sustained progress that will require more than an executive order is in higher education reform.

01:00:24.000 Look, America spends billions of dollars a year subsidizing monolithically left-wing universities that produce these ideologies. 1.00

01:00:32.000 And so I think that we need to have the Department of Education team, once we have the confirmation of Secretary of command, I think we really need to start working together to reform higher education, to put pressure on these institutions, not only through policy, but financial pressure and pressure on how status and prestige are distributed within the higher education world.

01:00:54.000 We have to incentivize scholarship, disincentivize left-wing activism.

01:00:58.000 And I think that we can do this through the various carrots and sticks that the Secretary of Education has available.

01:01:03.000 This is something I'm going to be working on moving forward.

01:01:06.000 And I think the time and the moment is right.

01:01:08.000 Well, that's Christopher Rufo.

01:01:10.000 No one in America has done more to push forward the conservative agenda in truly active ways than Chris.

01:01:15.000 Chris, really appreciate the time.

01:01:16.000 Thanks for all your hard work, as always.

01:01:18.000 Thank you so much.

01:01:19.000 All right, folks.

01:01:20.000 Well, it's been a long time since I did things I like, but it's the end of January, and I was doing a lot of travel, which meant I got to actually enjoy some culture on the airplanes.

01:01:28.000 And so I want to recommend a couple of things that I like.

01:01:30.000 I want to make this a regular feature.

01:01:32.000 of the show again.

01:01:33.000 So I'm going to save some of these for next week because there are actually a fair number of things that I like.

01:01:37.000 I'm going to pick two.

01:01:38.000 One is sort of against the grain and one of them is not.

01:01:42.000 So my against the grain pick for things that I like.

01:01:46.000 Gladiator 2. Now, I know a lot of people were very down on Gladiator 2. I know.

01:01:50.000 I know.

01:01:51.000 But it's fun.

01:01:53.000 Okay, it's not as good as Gladiator 1 by any stretch of the imagination.

01:01:56.000 But I don't really understand the extraordinary anger directed At Gladiator 2. Gladiator 2, sure, there weren't actual sharks in the Coliseum, but there were giant water battles in the Coliseum.

01:02:07.000 That's an actual thing that actually happened.

01:02:09.000 And sure, it's not historically accurate or anything, but it's Denzel at his most Denzel.

01:02:14.000 It's basically training day Denzel.

01:02:17.000 So you now have kind of a couple of modes of Denzel Washington, who's really the star of the show here.

01:02:21.000 You have the mode of Denzel Washington, where he's a much more serious actor.

01:02:25.000 He's doing things like Macbeth, which, by the way, I enjoyed the Coen Brothers version.

01:02:31.000 And there's the over-the-top Denzel Washington.

01:02:36.000 Lay out all the stops.

01:02:38.000 Just go for it.

01:02:39.000 And that's this Denzel.

01:02:40.000 The battle scenes are pretty good.

01:02:44.000 It obviously misses Russell Crowe in a very serious way.

01:02:47.000 But Russell Crowe died in Gladiator 1. Spoiler alert.

01:02:50.000 So he was not coming back.

01:02:52.000 And of course, it was never going to be Gladiator 1. Because how could it be?

01:02:57.000 With that said...

01:02:58.000 It's enjoyable, and I really don't understand the critical hate for this film.

01:03:01.000 So here's some of the preview.

01:03:03.000 I was owned.

01:03:07.000 Now I will control an empire.

01:03:09.000 I will not waste another generation of young men for their family. 0.80

01:03:15.000 Strength among us.

01:03:19.000 It's our own creature to heroes.

01:03:22.000 Tears on the mausoleum floor.

01:03:24.000 Let's save the Coliseum doors.

01:03:27.000 The gods of Earth.

01:03:32.000 Oh God!

01:03:34.000 Okay, so super historically inaccurate in terms of the actual emperors, the Roman emperors, right?

01:03:45.000 There were emperors with the names of these people, and there was another emperor who did take over for them, but that's pretty much all that's historically accurate in this piece.

01:03:53.000 The end of the movie is basically the Roman Empire is restored under the great democratic power of Lucius.

01:03:58.000 Yeah, that never happened, but it's fun anyway.

01:04:01.000 Denzel is extremely Denzel, like audacious and loud and all the rest.

01:04:07.000 Pedro Pascal plays himself, basically.

01:04:10.000 He's the same in all things.

01:04:11.000 And I enjoy Pedro Pascal, but he is exactly the same actor in every single piece.

01:04:15.000 And so he is in this as well.

01:04:17.000 Connie Nielsen makes her comeback.

01:04:18.000 She obviously reappears from number one.

01:04:22.000 I enjoyed it.

01:04:23.000 And it's like 71% on Rotten Tomatoes, 82% with the audience, did about $461 million at the box office.

01:04:30.000 Not a massive hit, but also not a giant miss from Ridley Scott.

01:04:33.000 More enjoyable than much of Ridley Scott's work, to be fair.

01:04:36.000 Okay.

01:04:37.000 Other things that I like.

01:04:39.000 So, here is one that is, you know, pretty widely accepted as good TV. That is the Season 2 of Severance.

01:04:46.000 So, I really enjoy Severance.

01:04:48.000 I think Severance is a really clever TV show.

01:04:50.000 It's on Apple TV, for those who have not seen it.

01:04:53.000 And Severance, the basic premise of it is that there is a company that has somehow created a procedure whereby they sever your work life.

01:05:04.000 From the rest of your life.

01:05:05.000 So when you go into this office, it's almost this bizarre alternative world where you only live at the office.

01:05:11.000 And you have no connection with the outside world.

01:05:13.000 You don't know anybody from the outside world.

01:05:14.000 You have a different identity.

01:05:16.000 And then in the outside world, you have your own life.

01:05:19.000 So a complete severance between your work life and your home life.

01:05:23.000 Now, that sounds like it would just be sort of a normal sitcom or something.

01:05:26.000 It isn't.

01:05:27.000 It's a very weird show with all sorts of lost type mysteries.

01:05:30.000 It's one of those shows where you really have to trust the writers.

01:05:33.000 And I have to admit, I've been burned by this before.

01:05:35.000 I was a huge fan of the show Lost that was on ABC for six seasons.

01:05:39.000 And I got burned beyond belief by Lost.

01:05:42.000 I was super into it.

01:05:43.000 I watched all the mysteries.

01:05:45.000 I went and interviewed Carlton Cuse.

01:05:46.000 I was a Damon Lindelof guy.

01:05:48.000 And they absolutely burned it to the ground in the last season.

01:05:51.000 So that could happen with Severance.

01:05:52.000 It could be they're setting up all these mysteries and they have no actual solves for the mysteries and the whole thing just falls apart.

01:05:57.000 I always hope when a writer takes me a place where I'm not expecting that they know where they're going.

01:06:02.000 Because I want to be along for the ride.

01:06:03.000 I've seen so much TV and so many movies at this point that it is very difficult for me not to predict the ending of pretty much every show or movie within the first 15 minutes of the movie.

01:06:11.000 That is not the case with Severins.

01:06:13.000 It's very weird.

01:06:14.000 It's clever.

01:06:14.000 It's got some really good performances across the board.

01:06:18.000 The kind of homages to 1970s paranoia film are pretty obvious.

01:06:24.000 Things like the parallax view.

01:06:25.000 The theme to this show, like the musical theme to this show, is very obviously ripped off.

01:06:30.000 from a fantastic Francis Ford Coppola movie called The Conversation, which if you haven't seen it, is great.

01:06:35.000 Gene Hackman celebrated his 95th birthday this week, and The Conversation is one of his best movies.

01:06:39.000 Super creepy and kind of terrifying.

01:06:41.000 The theme to this is pretty obviously ripped off from that, if not consciously and certainly unconsciously.

01:06:46.000 In any case, it is well worth the watch.

01:06:49.000 Super clever.

01:06:51.000 Again, I'm hoping that it goes somewhere interesting.

01:06:52.000 Here's a little bit of the preview.

01:06:55.000 Mark, there'll be no honeymoon ending for you.

01:07:03.000 Don't work.

01:07:04.000 We'll be remembered as one of the greatest moments of this planet.

01:07:10.000 You don't value them.

01:07:12.000 You fear them.

01:07:14.000 We fear no one.

01:07:18.000 I'm tightening the leash.

01:07:20.000 If we let this happen to Miss Casey...

01:07:22.000 It's super weird.

01:07:23.000 It's bizarre.

01:07:24.000 It's not even possible for me to explain what's going on in this preview unless you've seen season one.

01:07:28.000 And it's like deliberately weird.

01:07:30.000 Deliberately strange, right?

01:07:31.000 They're walking through office rooms.

01:07:32.000 Filled with goats.

01:07:34.000 And they're watermelon carve-outs of the person who's supposed to be like the godlike figure at the head of the corporation.

01:07:41.000 It's very strange.

01:07:44.000 It's done by Ben Stiller.

01:07:45.000 Ben Stiller's the producer on it.

01:07:46.000 And Adam Scott is the star.

01:07:49.000 Well produced.

01:07:51.000 Really good across the board.

01:07:52.000 So totally worth the watch.

01:07:53.000 Severance Season 2. Okay, and I will give one book recommendation as well since we're at the end of the month.

01:07:58.000 So I spent some time.

01:08:01.000 On the audiobook app, I do that when I'm exercising, for example.

01:08:06.000 I'm very excited, by the way, that the Apple audiobook app now turns all the way up to three times speed.

01:08:10.000 So I go all the way up to the maximum, and that means I can churn out an 18-hour book in six hours, which is awesome, which is great.

01:08:17.000 Well, I recently got through Tom Holland's Dominion, How the Christian Revolution Remade the World.

01:08:22.000 And the book is really quite fantastic.

01:08:25.000 So I will say, I do enjoy Tom Holland's History Podcast.

01:08:28.000 The rest is history.

01:08:30.000 Tom Holland and I, we have some conflicting politics, I would assume, but he's a really, really good writer, a terrific writer, very evocative.

01:08:37.000 He takes seriously religious claims, not that to the truth of the actual seriousness with which religious people take religious claims.

01:08:44.000 He doesn't mock them, which would be the easy way out for so many historians, especially writing about Judaism or Christianity.

01:08:49.000 What Tom Holland does instead is he tries to view history through the lens of the people who are living it, such that they actually take seriously the claims of miracles in Tours, for example.

01:08:59.000 Or take seriously the claims of Jesus' miracles in Dominion.

01:09:02.000 So basically the entire premise of the book is that pretty much everything in our lives is shaped by the Christian world, which of course is absolutely true. 1.00

01:09:09.000 I make much the same claim in my own book about the history of Western philosophy, The Right Side of History, which came out a few years ago.

01:09:16.000 Dominion is specifically about Christian philosophy and it is a history of church.

01:09:20.000 It's a history of the church going all the way back to the time of Jesus and forward through the so-called Dark Ages, which were not actually Dark Ages.

01:09:27.000 Forward into the medieval era, through the Reformation, and all the rest.

01:09:31.000 Fascinatingly well written.

01:09:33.000 It's, I think, a great reminder to people who are secular of exactly how little their own values spring from the ether.

01:09:41.000 There's this weird perception.

01:09:42.000 I've said this a thousand times in debates, whether it's with, you know, atheists like Alex O'Connor, or whether it is with people who are sort of just secular liberals.

01:09:50.000 I've said a thousand times.

01:09:51.000 The values that the left perceives, that the secular left perceives to be their values.

01:09:56.000 Our values that are rooted in Judeo-Christian tradition.

01:09:59.000 I say Judeo-Christian because, of course, half of the Bible is the Old Testament, which is Jewish in origin.

01:10:06.000 And again, even Christians have rejected the Marcion heresy, which suggests, of course, a complete divide between Jesus and Judaism. 0.71

01:10:13.000 In any case, Christianity is the single greatest shaping factor in the history of the world in terms of how the world has been shaped politically.

01:10:23.000 Morally, theologically.

01:10:24.000 That's just a fact.

01:10:25.000 There's no way around it.

01:10:27.000 Islam is a reaction to Christianity. 1.00

01:10:29.000 The way that markets are done in China is a reaction to Christianity. 0.53

01:10:34.000 Marxism is a reaction to Christianity.

01:10:35.000 So many things that we take for granted as sort of just secular ideals or secular ideas.

01:10:42.000 So many of those things are either reactions to or perversions of or quiet adoptions of Christian principles.

01:10:50.000 And this is the point that Holland makes.

01:10:51.000 So he goes through the history of the 20th century, and really the only anti-Christian movement that he notes is the Nazi movement, which was overtly directed against Christianity.

01:11:00.000 He says that the Soviet Union was, of course, anti-Christian as well, but the point that he makes is that many of the roots of Marxism actually lie in sort of early church writings, meaning that Marxism ends up being a rejection of religion while trying to embody a sort of utopian viewpoint on what the world should look like in the best of all possible world.

01:11:19.000 I think he takes the argument too far.

01:11:21.000 Sometimes I, for example, think that communism is an outright rejection of Christianity as opposed to a perversion of it.

01:11:27.000 But those are sort of arguable sentiments.

01:11:30.000 What is really fascinating about Dominion is tracing these lines of argument all the way through Christian history.

01:11:37.000 And so that's why the book has become very popular in Christian circles, even though Tom Holland isn't by any stretch of the imagination like a right-wing Christian or anything like that.

01:11:44.000 So check out the book.

01:11:46.000 Dominion, how the Christian revolution remade the world came out in 2019. Well, meanwhile, time for some things I hate. 0.96

01:11:52.000 Yes, it's come back.

01:11:53.000 Things I hate.

01:11:54.000 All right, so, the worst song in probably human history has now been released.

01:12:00.000 It is titled, I kid you not, Fat, Juicy, and Wet.

01:12:06.000 It is not, in fact, about a solid hamburger.

01:12:11.000 uh it is uh it is in fact about what you would think that it would be about because it's a perverse rap slash pop song by bruno mars has to be some excuse for why he would deign to do a number with sexy red she of the twice chlamydia who has on offer the lyrical genius of the colors of her anus i'm not kidding That's how she got famous.

01:12:34.000 And that right there is a near rhyme that must at some point appear in one of her songs, Anus and Famous.

01:12:40.000 In any case, Sexy Red.

01:12:45.000 Leads this number.

01:12:47.000 Bruno Mars decides to go along with all of this.

01:12:52.000 So instead of the sort of soft romance that Bruno Mars is more typically known for, instead, the collab features some of the worst lyrics in human history that I would not even deign to actually explain.

01:13:08.000 There are also surprising celebrity cameos from K-pop star Rosé.

01:13:13.000 And also Lady Gaga.

01:13:16.000 And it's not sexual innuendo. 0.93

01:13:20.000 It's just graphic descriptions of pornographic sexual activity.

01:13:26.000 That's all it is.

01:13:28.000 There's no subtlety to it.

01:13:30.000 There's no innuendo.

01:13:32.000 It's just an almost biological description of pornography.

01:13:37.000 It also happens to be terrible musically. 0.94

01:13:40.000 So there's nothing redeeming about this song.

01:13:43.000 At all.

01:13:43.000 I'm going to play you like 10 seconds of it, just so that you understand how bad it is.

01:13:48.000 Because this is what our pop culture has come to.

01:13:51.000 from the Gershwin brothers to Sexy Red and Bruno Mars in just a couple of generations.

01:13:57.000 I don't, so I've been asked by a producer to explain how much worse they can, so I've been asked by a producer to explain how much So I've been asked by a producer to explain how much worse they can get.

01:14:16.000 I don't, like, can it?

01:14:19.000 I mean, I suppose they could make it more violent.

01:14:21.000 That would make it worse.

01:14:24.000 But aside from that, I don't think it can get worse than this.

01:14:28.000 I mean, the music is awful.

01:14:30.000 Sexy Yorette has no flow. 1.00

01:14:31.000 She's truly an awful rapper. 1.00

01:14:32.000 I speak as a chart-topping rapper myself. 0.90

01:14:34.000 She has no flow at all. 0.75

01:14:35.000 She has no talent whatsoever. 0.54

01:14:37.000 None.

01:14:37.000 Zero talent.

01:14:38.000 Like, negative talent.

01:14:39.000 Like, active antipathy to talent.

01:14:42.000 But it just demonstrates that if you are a woman willing to sexualize yourself for money, then apparently the money's just waiting for you, and so is fame around the corner. 0.99

01:14:50.000 I can't imagine why our culture is in such serious trouble.

01:14:53.000 I swear to God, I cannot even read you these lyrics.

01:14:55.000 It's not possible to read you these lyrics.

01:14:59.000 They make Penthouse Forum look like Pilgrim's Progress.

01:15:04.000 That's how bad these lyrics are.

01:15:07.000 Oh my God, this makes Cardi B's WAP. Sound like baby it's cold outside.

01:15:17.000 It's so bad.

01:15:19.000 It's so horrifyingly terrible.

01:15:22.000 By the way, not even sexy and transgressive. 0.80

01:15:27.000 Just kind of off-putting and insane.

01:15:32.000 I wish I could read you a single line from it, but there's literally not a single line you can read from it other than Do it, sexy.

01:15:41.000 Do it, sexy. 1.00

01:15:42.000 Do it.

01:15:43.000 Which is the outro.

01:15:44.000 That's literally the only...

01:15:46.000 That is the only thing that you can read from this.

01:15:50.000 Wow.

01:15:51.000 And believe you me, I know how viral it would be if I read these lyrics.

01:15:55.000 But I cannot bring myself to read you these lyrics.

01:15:59.000 They're...

01:15:59.000 Wow.

01:16:02.000 You know what?

01:16:04.000 The flood is coming.

01:16:06.000 Get ready.

01:16:08.000 God will not be mocked in this way.

01:16:10.000 Oh boy.

01:16:12.000 That's some horrifying, horrifying stuff.

01:16:13.000 And Bruno Mars, man.

01:16:15.000 Already, coming up.

01:16:17.000 It turns out that there's only one type of religious blasphemy that is actually not allowed anymore.

01:16:24.000 We'll get to that in a moment.

01:16:26.000 If you're not a member, become a member.

01:16:27.000 Use code Shapiro.

01:16:27.000 Check out for two months free on All Annual Plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - January 31, 2025

Did DEI Cause the DC Crash?!

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